Annual report & accounts 2024-25

  1. Introduction
  2. Highlights
  3. Education & training
  4. Monitoring cycling, road safety and connecting people
    1. Monitoring everyday cycling in Scotland
    2. Road safety
    3. Connecting people
  5. Access to bikes, cycle parking & storage
  6. Transport Planning & Engineering
  7. Organisation

Monitoring cycling, road safety and connecting people

Monitoring everyday cycling in Scotland

Cycling Scotland collects, analyses and shares cycling data nationally, regionally and locally.

The National Monitoring Framework (NMF) is a Scotland-wide project which uses fixed cycle counters and temporary traffic surveys to monitor long-term cycling rates and cycling mode shares.

Traffic surveys were conducted over two days in both May and September in 2024, at 145 locations in all 32 of Scotland’s local authorities. They continued to reveal how the growing network of cycle routes in Scotland is encouraging record numbers of people to travel by bike. 

The May 2024 survey recorded that bikes accounted for 9.1% of all journeys on Leith Walk, Edinburgh: a level of modal share rarely seen in Scotland. And the number of cycling journeys overall in Edinburgh was up 12% compared to May 2023, and up 19% compared to May 2022.

The September survey recorded 5,457 bikes on the South City Way cycle route on Victoria Road in the south of Glasgow. This was out of a total of 36,417 travel methods recorded, meaning that 15% of people cycled their journey, and this was a 46% year-on-year growth compared to the survey the previous year.

NMF cycle counters are located in all 32 of Scotland’s LAs, complementing counters managed by the local authorities themselves. All datapoints are available for any stakeholder to observe and download on the Cycling Open Data portal.

 

New monitoring technologies

Cycling Scotland has continued to trial artificial intelligence monitoring technologies on a small scale with a view to enhancing the NMF over time.

The Cycling Open Data portal is available for anyone to use and brings together the most comprehensive collection of active travel data of its kind in Scotland. The platform delivers real-time cycle count data supplied by a nationwide network of more than 800 automatic cycle and walking counters. It also holds traffic survey data from 2017 to the present, and other data related to cycling in Scotland

Analysis conducted by Cycling Scotland of all 800+ counters on the platform allows for the most comprehensive and current analysis of cycling trends from across Scotland.

In the summer this led to the discovery of 14 locations recording increases of over 30% in the number of cycle journeys in summer 2024 compared with summer 2023. The urban and rural locations included: Aberdeenshire, Angus, Clackmannanshire, East Lothian, Edinburgh, Glasgow, South Lanarkshire, Stirling, and West Dunbartonshire

The latest Annual Cycling Monitoring Report has been published as an online interactive visualisation for the first time; including national and local cycling statistics from multiple sources, including statistics on participation in cycling, access to bikes, attitudes to cycling, cycle count data.

Case study

15% of journeys being made by bike on Glasgow’s Victoria Road

Adults and a child using the South City Way cycle path in Glasgow

Traffic surveys organised by Cycling Scotland in September 2024 and January 2025, revealed the growing success of new landmark cycle routes in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and their impact in supporting more people to travel by bike.

Over a 48-hour period in September 2024, 5,457 bikes were recorded on Glasgow’s Victoria Road, part of the South City Way cycle route linking communities in Glasgow’s Southside to the city centre. This was out of a total of 36,417 travel methods recorded, meaning that 15% of people cycled their journey – a new record cycling modal share for an urban street in Scotland.

I’ve lived in other parts of the city that don’t have anything like this, and I didn’t cycle as much as I do now. We cycle together to school a few days a week, and I then use the route the rest of the way to get to work in the centre. It saves me so much time.

Annalise Commuter on the South City Way

In Edinburgh, a 48-hour traffic survey conducted in January 2025 on the CCWEL recorded a total of 2,199 people cycling on the West Coates section – 1,000 more bike journeys compared to the same two-day period in January 2024, shortly after construction of the route. This marked an 83% year-on-year growth in the number of people cycling along this route.

Annalise, a commuter who cycles with her son to school along Glasgow’s South City Way several times a week, shared her thoughts on the route: “It’s brilliant to have this and it makes such a difference. I’ve lived in other parts of the city that don’t have anything like this, and I didn’t cycle as much as I do now. We cycle together to school a few days a week, and I then use the route the rest of the way to get to work in the centre. It saves me so much time."

Learn more about the growing evidence that when Scotland builds high quality cycling infrastructure, it gets more people cycling.