The BiciZen Launch in Numbers

It has only been 2 weeks since we launched BiciZen and we are thrilled to see how quickly users have been uploading their contributions. In this very short period, the BiciZen platform has received 617 new contributions from 14 different countries. At our current pace of about 40 contributions a day, we are on track to have 14,600 contributions in a year, which would surpass our grandest expectations. The speed at which BiciZen appears to be taking off within the cycling community is very exciting for us and we hope that it is a sign that we can work together to address the everyday problems encountered by cyclists on city streets.

In the first week of our launch, our team attended various events such as the Festa de la Ciència, la Festa de la Bici or the SigLibre conference in order to get the word out about the platform. In addition, we met with various cycling groups such as FemBici or ConBici, who were interested in the platform. We also appeared on the news and the radio [1][2][3][4], and released a press release in the partner universities [5][6][7][8][9]. The purpose of this post is to review the activity on BiciZen in the first two weeks of our existence.

BiciZen overview: Contributions

In our first 2 weeks, BiciZen received 617 new contributions, of which 468 have been new spots, and 149 spot updates. Below, you can see the number of contributions by day. The contributions have been made in 14 different countries, the majority of those in Spain (84%), followed by Belgium (5%), Finland, Ireland and Portugal (2,7%, 2,4%, 2,1%).

The majority of the contributions are bicycle parking locations (55%) and obstructions (15%). We are very happy about the 33 proposals of new cycling infrastructure. The other typologies of contributions that were made can be seen in the figure below:

BiciZen overview: Users

BiciZen data is anonymized by Spotteron, the company powering the platform. This means that not even the researchers who lead the project have access to the personal data of the users. As a result, we rely on user ID to estimate the number of users who have contributed in the app, and the location of the observations, to determine the countries where each user has contributed.

During the two weeks after the launch, 87 users have contributed to the BiciZen project, of which 5 have contributed in multiple countries. Below, you can see the number of users who have contributed each day and next to it, the number of users who have contributed in each country.

We have been amazed with how quickly BiciZen has taken off within the cycling community, especially in the Barcelona metropolitan region. One surprise has been to see that middle size cities, such as Sant Cugat and Terrassa have been quickly mapped by a small number of dedicated users. Therefore while Barcelona has many of the observations, bicycle users in the mid-sized cities are telling us that they have serious cycling problems that need urgent attention there. We initially though that BiciZen would be adopted by our close collaborators, and members of the Beta testing working group. While they have helped, most of our contributions have come from users that were not part of our initial network. This was an unexpected and welcome surprise. We have also seen how users quickly picked up on the timeline feature, being able to document the evolution the construction of new cycling infrastructure. This was somewhat of a surprise, as users are adapting the platform to fit their needs and tell the story about what they are seeing while riding a bike. We look forward to learning more about what the cycling community has to share on BiciZen.

News and radio:

[1] La Vanguardia: https://www.lavanguardia.com/motor/vehiculos/bicicletas/20230606/9021311/crean-aplicacion-movil-mejorar-bicicleta-zonas-urbanas.html

[2] RTVE: https://www.rtve.es/play/audios/vida-verda/turisme-nova-mirada-deute-ve-bicizen/6908635/

[3] Radio Sabadell: https://radiosabadell.fm/alacarta/audio/jordi-honey-roses-icta-uab-el-60-de-lespai-public-es-destina-als-cotxes-pero-nomes

[4] Cerdanyola info: https://www.cerdanyola.info/bicizen

Patner universities:

[5] Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: https://www.uab.cat/web/sala-de-premsa-icta-uab/detall-noticia/innovative-mobile-app-to-transform-urban-cycling-experiences-1345819915004.html?detid=1345890132504

[6] Dublin City University: https://www.dcu.ie/commsteam/news/2023/jun/new-cycling-community-app-launches-dcu-data-support

[7] Universidade de Aveiro: https://www.ua.pt/pt/noticias/9/81282

[8] Tampere University: https://www.tuni.fi/en/news/innovative-mobile-app-develops-cycling-city-regions

[9] Univeristy of Twente: https://www.utwente.nl/en/eciu/for-%20our-%20community/latest-news/

Other: