Bike counter display on Canal

BostonB

I see theres a bike counter display on the canal near Cathal Brugha Barracks,

Whats that all about then?

Bunnyhopper

http://www.dublincity.ie/Press/PressReleases/PressReleasesSeptember2011/Pages/AutomaticcyclecountercomestoGroveRoadfirstforDublinCity.aspx

Sensors buried in the road called inductive loops sense bikes passing. As metal objects pass over the loop they cause a small pulse of electricity which can be measured. The sensors can tell the difference between cars and bikes and only record the bikes.

I wonder, does that make a carbon bike a stealth bike?

cython

Bunnyhopper wrote: »

http://www.dublincity.ie/Press/PressReleases/PressReleasesSeptember2011/Pages/AutomaticcyclecountercomestoGroveRoadfirstforDublinCity.aspx




I wonder, does that make a carbon bike a stealth bike?

Depending on how sensitive the inductive loops are, and presuming that cars are ruled out because of generating too big a pulse, only if you have a full carbon groupset as well

BostonB

Probably shouldn't have done a few rings around it so...

monument

Here's some more info on the counter: http://cyclingindublin.com/2011/09/27/bike-counter-launched-along-the-grand-canal/

At the launch it detected one motorbike in the cycle lane (evened out by missing one cyclist who just went out of the lane) -- it was said it will be calibrated to tell the difference between a cyclist and a motorbike, and only count the former.

BostonB

Didn't realise the numbers were that high!

daragh_

Gathering data on how many motorbikes use cycles lanes might be useful as well.

Interesting to note that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council are planning to put one on the Rock Road at a cost of €20k. Bizarre. A ten minute visit during rush hour would tell them them there is a massive and urgent need for a clearly marked, linked up cycle path through Blackrock and up to St Vincents.

Particularly bad along by the Tara Towers. Silly commuters cycling on the path is a small clue.

Korvanica

I pass the one on the n11 every morning, I'm usually 220-240... when its raining that drops to about 100-120... mad how many cyclists cower to their cars/busses when there is a little bit of rain. Pffft, what is this? AMATEUR HOUR ?

I've noticed that sometimes it doesn't pick my bike up though..(steel frame) and if 2 bikes are really close together it sometimes misses the second one...

monument

BostonB wrote: »

Didn't realise the numbers were that high!

The areas around it are quite popular for cycling and you've also got a lot of longer distance cyclists commuting etc along the canal.

If anything the counter does not get all the traffic along the canal because a decent amount of the cyclists use Windsor Terrace on the other side of the canal.

wanderer 22

I passed the new counter on Grove road last week, as I went by the numbers changed from 99 to 100 for cyclists that day and from 999 to 1000 for cyclists this year...My proudest achievement

monument

I forgot to say Dublin City Council will be looking for suggestions on where the counter on the north side should be put.

daragh_ wrote: »

Bizarre. A ten minute visit during rush hour would tell them them there is a massive and urgent need for a clearly marked, linked up cycle path through Blackrock and up to St Vincents. ...

The reason for them is to built up a better idea of when cyclists cycle -- they be able to look at the months, dates, days, and times of day and compare this to the weather or other factors such as if schools and colleges or open. They'll also be able to compare the different locations to see what differences they get -- the road along the canal, the N11, the Rock Road, the Metals walking and cycling route are all quite different.

To date we've only had very limited traffic counts for at most a few days at a time.

CramCycle

The one outside UCD rarely functions correctly, doesn't pick up my steel bike, can't account for those on the bus lane who are overtaking those going slowly (or just don't like the cycle lane). There was another thread detailing how the council had people out counting the number of cyclists to compare it to the number registered, wonder if the numbers were published? I doubt it after wasting 20,000 on something an engineering student in UCD could have built and fitted for under 2,000.

It also registers only about 240 - 300 a day which IMO sounds way off, I would imagine it to be almost 10 times that over a 24 hour period.

Korvanica

CramCycle wrote: »

It also registers only about 240 - 300 a day which IMO sounds way off, I would imagine it to be almost 10 times that over a 24 hour period.

Thats an average over the whole year, remember that a lot of students going to Ucd would pass it, and other students too.. Weekends drag down that average too..

or have you been passing it at night regularly ?

I agree on it being a bit broken/off though....

monument

Interisting to hear of the other problems.

I've written before about the one on the N11 -- there's no reason that it should not also be counting cyclists in the bus lane, it just needs a second sensor put in the bus lane. They can be set the counters to only count cyclists and it can tell the difference between cyclists / motorcyclists / buses / cars.

Doctor Bob

CramCycle wrote: »

The one outside UCD rarely functions correctly, doesn't pick up my steel bike, can't account for those on the bus lane who are overtaking those going slowly (or just don't like the cycle lane). There was another thread detailing how the council had people out counting the number of cyclists to compare it to the number registered, wonder if the numbers were published? I doubt it after wasting 20,000 on something an engineering student in UCD could have built and fitted for under 2,000.

It also registers only about 240 - 300 a day which IMO sounds way off, I would imagine it to be almost 10 times that over a 24 hour period.

When I inquired, I was assured that the one at UCD has been tested and works fine.

If it appears not to pick up your steel bike, it's probably because you've passed the display before the counter has registered you- there's a slight delay. Try going more slowly if it's important.

And as has been said before, it's not designed to pick up cyclists in the bus lane as (like it or not) cyclists legally shouldn't be there. If and when the law changes, the sensor can be changed too. (I didn't realise cyclists could break the law because someone was preventing them from reaching the max HR on a commute. :rolleyes: Do you cross a solid white line when driving if there's a hearse in front of you?)

Do you have a breakdown of the costs of this hypothetical UCD Engineering student who could magick up, install and monitor such a piece of equipment for 1/10th the price? I'd love to see those fgures if you have a second.

As for 'imagin[ing]' that more cyclists must use that route: what have you got against the factinista?

Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert, and tonight it is my privilege to celebrate this president, ‘cause we're not so different, he and I. We both get it. Guys like us, we're not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the Factinista. We go straight from the gut. Right, sir?

That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. Now, I know some of you are going to say, "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works.

Who needs evidence when you've got a feeeeeeeeling?

monument

Doctor Bob wrote: »

...as (like it or not) cyclists legally shouldn't be there.

That's not correct.

As the law stands, cyclists are allowed to use all bus lanes other than contra-flow bus lanes without the bicycle marking in the sign or other cycle lane markings. I've this confirmed with the NTA and councils.

Where there is both a legally marked cycle lane (many are not) and a with-flow bus lane, the mandatory use regulations for cycle lanes don't appear to have been written in a way which forces cyclists into a off-road or off-carriageway cycle track. It's seems to be a choice.

There are currently no with-flow bus lanes where cyclists are not allowed.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice

I noticed last week when I overtook someone while going by it that I wasn't registered. Wasn't happy.

CramCycle

Korvanica wrote: »

Thats an average over the whole year, remember that a lot of students going to Ucd would pass it, and other students too.. Weekends drag down that average too..

or have you been passing it at night regularly ?

I agree on it being a bit broken/off though....

I didn't know it was an average, I thought it was a day counter but it still doesn't account for the huge differences in perceived cycle traffic and recorded. I pass there in the morning, some evenings and sometimes in the dead of night (odd working hours). It seems to be stuck in around the same number constantly.

Doctor Bob wrote: »

When I inquired, I was assured that the one at UCD has been tested and works fine.

If it appears not to pick up your steel bike, it's probably because you've passed the display before the counter has registered you- there's a slight delay. Try going more slowly if it's important.

I went back to see did it change after a few people went through on two occasions and it had not, so its not recognising alot of cyclists as far as I can tell.

And as has been said before, it's not designed to pick up cyclists in the bus lane as (like it or not) cyclists legally shouldn't be there. If and when the law changes, the sensor can be changed too. (I didn't realise cyclists could break the law because someone was preventing them from reaching the max HR on a commute. :rolleyes: Do you cross a solid white line when driving if there's a hearse in front of you?)

It's not one of those threads, lets not go down that path :pac:

Do you have a breakdown of the costs of this hypothetical UCD Engineering student who could magick up, install and monitor such a piece of equipment for 1/10th the price? I'd love to see those fgures if you have a second.

I'm not an engineering student but I will endeavour to cost an induction coil, some cabelling and a cheap LCD display with a counter over the weekend (a second is a bit too little time). I never said he would monitor it but I imagine a wireless device to remotely transmit data via a local network would not be tremendously expensive either.

As for 'imagin[ing]' that more cyclists must use that route: what have you got against the factinista?



Who needs evidence when you've got a feeeeeeeeling?

I have statistics, flawed ones, but statistics (or lies and damned lies :P). On the commute in to UCD, I would pass a minimum of 15 cyclists on that short stretch, in a time of less than 2 minutes. Admittedly, this is at rush hour as many people make there way to work but I could hypothesize that with rush hour alone being relatively constant for levels of cyclists throughout (maybe slightly busier later on as they didn't have to get out of bed as early to beat the traffic), that would be in a small window, 300 cyclists (between 8 and 10). Being a relatively large university, it would be fair to assume that with lectures starting and ending at different times in the day that there would be a reasonably high level of cycling traffic compared to other parts of Dublin throughout the day, and being on a main road towards the city centre a slightly elevated level compared to minor roads in the area at all times. My "feeling" is based on reasonable deduction, but I agree that some hard facts would be nice which is why I was wondering had the council released the figures for cyclists that were counted by people and not the display/induction coil.

I'll happily admit I was wrong if someone can show me, i know the recorder does not always work as I have seen it. That said there was someone talking about them adding on numbers to the counter to statistically account for the numbers on the bus lane but i have no idea if this came to pass.

monument

The figure on the counter should be the actual count on the day so-far.

StudentC

Korvanica wrote: »

I pass the one on the n11 every morning, I'm usually 220-240... when its raining that drops to about 100-120... mad how many cyclists cower to their cars/busses when there is a little bit of rain. Pffft, what is this? AMATEUR HOUR ?

I've noticed that sometimes it doesn't pick my bike up though..(steel frame) and if 2 bikes are really close together it sometimes misses the second one...

Pfffft, 220-240? I smugly pride myself on usually being in the single figures, or under number 20 anyway :-)

It picks me up most of the time, but I agree it seems to struggle if two people pass over the sensor in quick succession. Also, you have to be going below about 30kph to actually see the number change - faster than that and you're past the board before it changes.

Regarding the number, I've no idea how far off reality it is - somebody mentioned above that the council did a hand-cound to comapre, I'd like to see that data.

It'd also be really interesting to see the data relative to time of day.

petethedrummer

CramCycle wrote: »

I'm not an engineering student but I will endeavour to cost an induction coil, some cabelling and a cheap LCD display with a counter over the weekend (a second is a bit too little time). I never said he would monitor it but I imagine a wireless device to remotely transmit data via a local network would not be tremendously expensive either.

Is the student going to hire a jackhammer and dig up the road? injection mould a nice display unit? Is he going to concrete in the display unit? Is he going wire it for power without electrocuting himself? Is he going to configure the network connection? Is he going to configure the connection to the database? Is he going establish how this unit writes to the database or how the database queries the unit?

Or is he just going to leave the various bits wired to a car battery in a cardboard box with an umbrella taped to the side?

triggermortis

petethedrummer wrote: »

Is the student going to hire a jackhammer and dig up the road? injection mould a nice display unit? Is he going to concrete in the display unit? Is he going wire it for power without electrocuting himself? Is he going to configure the network connection? Is he going to configure the connection to the database? Is he going establish how this unit writes to the database or how the database queries the unit?

Or is he just going to leave the various bits wired to a car battery in a cardboard box with an umbrella taped to the side?

c'mon now, (s)he's a student...

CramCycle

This is way off topic but I'm going to bite

petethedrummer wrote: »

Is the student going to hire a jackhammer and dig up the road?

The council should have one already so its just the cost of getting it there (presuming the student is doing it free of charge)

injection mould a nice display unit?

Why does it have to be nice?, Water proof is good enough for me.

Is he going to concrete in the display unit?

If he's going to dig up the area he may as well fill it back in.

Is he going wire it for power without electrocuting himself?

I presume a qualified electrician will be called out to do this, typical H&S BS :pac:

Is he going to configure the network connection? Is he going to configure the connection to the database? Is he going establish how this unit writes to the database or how the database queries the unit?

To be honest I'd imagine these to be quite easy for one of the CS students to do while we are getting the free work (sure won't it look great on their CV).

Or is he just going to leave the various bits wired to a car battery in a cardboard box with an umbrella taped to the side?

He could actually rig up this instead, a solar panel to the roof of the counter with a storage battery (or a mini turbine as described in the book Solar). This would jump up the cost but it would also take out the cost of connecting to the grid and getting someone out to do the job.

Thanks for the ideas :P

mmclo

Not sure if it qualifies as Northside but one in the Phoenix park should catch a lot of west dublin cyclists. Aslo the north quays would be another obvious place

petethedrummer

CramCycle wrote: »

Thanks for the ideas :P

Grand so. You can quote the job for €19,000 next time and make yourself a tidy €17,000. Best of luck.