The geek within, and a bit of Googling, reveals the location of London’s 94 Automatic Cycle Counters. Does your ride to work count?
A guy I know who lives round the corner from me doesn’t count. Despite riding to work pretty much every day of the year, rain or shine; through the joys of summer and the depths of winter, he’s invisible.
The problem is, he works at Millbank, and rides through West London to get there, crossing Putney Bridge as he goes. And because of that, as far as Transport for London is concerned, he doesn’t exist. Perhaps I should clarify that – as far as TfL’s network of 94 Automatic Cycle Counters (ACCs) are concerned, he doesn’t exist.
We must thank Alexander Baxevanis, who in November 2010 asked TfL for information about the capital’s 94 ACCs. Whether he realised that he got a response a month or so later, we don’t know, but TfL provided the coordinates for all. All that remained for the geeks at &Bike to do was convert them into a readable format and upload them to Google Maps.
And here we have it, the location of London’s 94 ACCs. So, does your commute count?
View London Cycle Counters in a larger map
David Rae
If you liked this article, please subscribe to the &Bike Sunday Read newsletter – an exclusive, in-depth article every Sunday delivered to your inbox. Also, please share using the widgets below. Finally, we’d love to hear your views, either through the comments section or via email.
Looks like mine does (Hackney to Hammersmith via Old Street) but it does seems odd that there’s none tracking people coming the other direction from West London via Notting Hill, Bayswater, High St Ken or Hyde Park…
Yeah, mine too – but only if I head over Chelsea Bridge. If I take my alternative route through Battersea Park I disappear, go ‘off-grid’.
I know what you mean about some of the gaps, although more might have been installed since then.
You’re going to have to ‘scuse my ignorance but….why????
What happens to the data?
Good question. Big Brother continually monitors commuting habits and then makes reports. Gives people like me something to write about
Ah! You’ll be being congestion & emission charged next, just think of all that Co2 you’re breathing out and I hate to think what the emissions are like from cycling commuters on a post curry night ride in to work!
Interesting, I do count… on the Woodford New Road read the A406 roundabout.
Not anywhere on the rest of my 20km ride though. What happens if you go through two? It’s not like we have numberplates.
Nah, mine doesn’t — I’m an ocean away. Quick thought though: it might be fin for someone to set up a random “fool the bike counter days” — days when everyone goes past each counter on their route 2 or 3 times, instead of just once. Yep, a little skullduggery was never below me.
Sounds good to me. Perhaps if we all ride past the counters a LOT they’ll improve the road surfacing at those locations.
Ha, I crack myself up.
So many thousands of miles and I’ve never been counted.
I honestly find it hard to understand why they have no counters on Embankment between Edith Grove and Blackfriars; that must be the busiest arterial cyclist route in London.
No clues. Seems crazy doesn’t it – there’s almost a vacuum stretching from Richmond Park to the West End… All good if you like cycling off grid though…
@Melty @Gizmo – there must be something here. Maybe a London sportive passing every single ACC – wonder what the mileage would be on that one!