If you use the bike option in TripGo, you might have seen a “cycle friendliness” score for each bike trip. This is a percentage based on the total distance of your bike trip, looking at how much of it is bicycle “friendly” and how much “unfriendly”.
The map shown, you might have noticed, is also different to the usual one that’s shown for other transport options. CyclOSM is an OpenStreetMap-based bicycle map, which has additional information in it that might be interesting to cyclists, like type of track, bicycle parking spots and repair stations.
So, what’s new?
We’ve now added more information to your bike trip card. It shows – colour coded, like the sections on the map – what kinds of streets and paths the route uses, and where sections are part of the cycle network.
Why is this important?
As any bike rider knows, there is a big difference in safety between a cycle lane that’s just a line on the road that many drivers ignore, versus having a cycle track that is dedicated to cycling and physically separated from cars. Also being aware of which routes are part of the cycle network and therefore usually safer and more pleasant to ride on can make a huge difference to your commute. So with more information about route options, a bike rider can make better decisions and prepare accordingly for the ride.
What do the new labels mean?
Cycle friendliness: This measure is mainly based on the type of road, and whether the road has cycle lanes/tracks or not. Both a separated cycle track and a main road which includes a cycle lane are considered “friendly” for this measure. Sidewalks are considered not friendly; roads forming part of official cycling networks as well as bicycle boulevards (see below) are friendly.
Main Road: These are the “big” roads: trunk, primary, secondary or tertiary
Side Road: Smaller roads, residential or ‘unclassified’; often linking smaller towns, villages and hamlets
Shared Road: A shared road is a ‘living street’, i.e. a residential street where pedestrians have legal priority over cars, speeds are kept very low and where children are allowed to play on the street
(See OSM wiki for more details on each road type)
Bicycle Boulevard: Cycle streets and bicycle roads, i.e. roads that are designed as a bicycle route; cars and other motor vehicles might or might not be allowed
Cycle Lane: an inherent part of the road itself, has no physical separation from the other lanes except the painting on the road; notably, there is no curb between the cycle lane and the road
Cycle Track: separated from the road by curbs, parking lots, grass verges, trees or another physical barrier, but is running parallel and next to the road, or is an independent cycleway
Cycle Network: These are international, national, regional or local routes officially marked as used for cycling. Many different countries have these networks; these are usually “better” routes for bike riding (see OSM wiki for more detail).
We hope this information will provide many of our fellow cyclists with important information and make your rides more enjoyable. Happy cycling!
Over to you
Which features would you like to see added to TripGo in future?
Leave us a comment below.
