Context ------- This dataset is from the streets of Ottawa Ontario Canada. From the years 2010 to 2018. Content ------- The dataset is the number of bicycles (as an integer) that passed specific measurement locations. Each colu?m?n represents a measurement location. The counters are considered accurate to within a range of +0%, -5% of the bikes that cross over the sensing section of the pathway or bike lane. What is Counted: - Most large wheeled strollers, wheelchairs, mobility scooters will typically be counted as bikes - Some skateboards and roller-bladers will be counted as bikes. - Carbon-fibre framed bikes will be counted, as long as their wheel rims are metallic (aluminium or steel) - Cars, trucks and snow-ploughs will typically not be counted since they are massive enough to be detected as non-bikes and therefore be ignored by the sensor electronics. On most routes where bike counters are installed, cyclists can in fact by-pass the counters. In this sense the total bike traffic along a route may be higher that the count. For example, at the Alexandra Bride count site, some cyclists use the pedestrian-only section of the board-walk instead of the bike-track where the sensors are located- these cyclists are not counted. Some cyclists use the roadway instead of the bike-track, these cyclists are also not counted. On multi-use pathways, the bypass is quite low, occasionally a cyclist may veer off the track onto the grass, this also happens for a short period in early spring while some ice remains on the pathways. Only the counters designated as winter counters have valid data after the first snow accumulation, until snow has been removed or melted away in spring. Winter counters imply some winter maintenance of the pathway or bike lane. The Somerset counter bike lane (westbound only) is cleared of snow on a best-effort basis only, and typically will not show all the cyclists along that route immediately following a heavy snow-fall. There may be gaps in counter data if the counters were being serviced, or if the pathway/road at the counter site was under construction. In these cases the counter data will be empty. Acknowledgements ------- This dataset is from Open Data Ottawa. http://data.ottawa.ca/dataset/bicycle-trip-counters-automated. Data cleaned by Matthew Thomson. License ------- Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada Inspiration ------- This dataset was created to make consuming the open Ottawa data easier. Rather than consuming 10+ excel sheets of varying versions and formats a scientist can simply consume a single .csv. The periodic nature of biking in Canada due to -20 C winters can lead to fun predictions. Script ------- Here is the script used to turn the Open Data Ottawa files into the .CSV: https://github.com/thomsn/bike_counters/blob/master/clean_data.py You are welcome to perform the same procedure and generate the dataset for yourself in order to "trust" that the data was not modified in any way.