European Cyclists Rank EU Countries

The European Cyclists Federation (ECF) is using the run up to next weeks Velo-city 2013, its international cycling conference in Vienna, to launch a groundbreaking new benchmarking report which provides a multi-dimensional view on cycling in all 27 EU countries.

Remarkably Netherlands and Denmark were inseparable at the top of the table after assessing daily cycling levels, cycle tourism, advocacy activity, bicycle sales and cyclists safety.  Countries in the south and east of Europe showed they have a lot of potential for improvement.

ECF Cycling Barometer Project Manager Chloe Mispelon said The main purpose of launching the ECF Cycling Barometer today is to get people talking about international comparisons in cycling. We are constantly asked which countries in Europe are ‘best for cycling. The ECF Cycling Barometer is our way of prompting a debate around five dimensions of cycling we are prioritising.

We are confident in our results which show a strong correlation with other data and knowledge about cycling but we call on the EU Horizon 2020 research program to establish data that is updated and maintained through to 2020. The barometer shows that we really need reliable statistics on cycling in the EU to enable governments and advocates to assess progress on cycling and to allow collaborative working between countries to improve cycling for European citizens.

Up to now, it was considered difficult to compare European countries and the state of their cycling across numerous fields. Different national statistics and lack of data make it hard to be certain about the cycling record of each country. Uniquely the ECF Cycling Barometer took five verifiable EU-wide surveys and therefore eliminated different treatments given to cycling in EU member states. The countries are then given points according to their rank in each field and all points are summed to get a final score.

ECF Secretary General Bernhard Ensink said This is a valuable analysis carried out by our ECF staff working across several disciplines. Now the advocacy community and our partners can use this to press governments for real, measurable change. If we are to double cycling in Europe it is also vital for the EU to use this data and develop it to show where strategic investments, structural funds and research funding must be focused in coming years.

The results are: