NPT Manual

Trip purpose

People have many reasons to travel, and their reasons for travel often change their choice of destinations and routes. Therefore, a cycling network designed for commuters may look very different to a network designed for children to travel to school. The trip purpose drop-down allows you to view different networks based on different trip purposes.

All

This is the default view that displays all journey purposes that are part of the NPT (travel to work, travel to school, and other everyday journeys) combined, offering an overview of total cycling potential.

Commute

The commute network, as the second option in the travel purpose dropdown list, is based on the 2011 Census travel to work data. Commuters tend to favour radial routes from suburban residential areas into town and city centres where most jobs are concentrated. This layer can help identify the core arterial network.

Primary School

The primary school network, as the third option in the travel purpose dropdown list, shows cycling potential for children cycling to primary schools, whether by e-cargo, accompanied by adults, or including as part of 'cycle buses' or travelling independently. It provides insights into the routes that could be taken by children and carers. Recognising these patterns is important for urban planners, enabling them to emphasize and develop infrastructure that prioritises the safety of young people. Schools tend to be located in residential areas, so the resulting primary and secondary networks tend to favour denser orbital routes that could be supported by modal filters and traffic management.

Secondary School

The secondary school network is the fourth option in the travel purpose dropdown menu. It offers insights into the networks that could enable young people safe cycling options to get to and from secondary school.

Other Everyday

Other Everyday trips include trips for three individual purposes; shopping, to access leisure facilities and personal trips. Each trip purpose is described below, with this network being the combination of these three journey purposes.

Shopping trips account for cycling behaviours of individuals travelling to shops, including for food shopping, providing insights into the most popular routes for these types of trips.

Trips to access leisure facilities captures the cycling patterns of individuals travelling to social hubs, parks, and recreational destinations (e.g. leisure centres, cinemas).

Personal trips captures the cycling patterns of individuals visiting friends and family.

What’s missing from the NPT

The NPT does not currently consider recreational cycling. This is more complex to model as cyclists may not have a specific destination in mind.

The NPT currently only considers direct journeys where the whole trip is by bicycle. It does not consider mixed-mode journeys such as cycling to the station and then taking a train to your final destination. This means that the NPT slightly underestimates cycling potential overall and may significantly underestimate cycling potential in specific places (such as around train stations).

Scenarios

The scenarios drop-down allows you to view different levels of cycling and other information about the road network

Baseline 

The baseline scenario represents the current level of cycling. As such, it is intended to show where there is an existing demand for cycling infrastructure.

Go Dutch

The Go Dutch scenario imagines a future with a high level of cycling, where people in Scotland are as likely to travel by cycle as people in the Netherlands while accounting for differences in trip distance and hilliness between locations. People in the Netherlands make 28.4% of trips by bicycle, greater than twenty times higher than the figure of 1.2% in Scotland in 2019 ().The Go Dutch scenario scales up the baseline scenario to a Dutch modal share for cycling in Scotland. This is not produced by scaling up baseline trips by a uniform factor, rather it takes account of trip distance and hilliness. So for example, in flatter areas the Go Dutch scenario will show a greater increase over baseline than equivalent more hilly areas. As such, this network shows how a Dutch modal share for cycling could be distributed across Scotland.

Planners should seek to design cycle networks that meet the needs of both current and future cyclists. But they may phase the construction to prioritise roads that will meet the needs of current cyclists and enable new people to cycle.

EBikes

The Ebike scenario models the additional increase in cycling that would be achieved on top of the Go Dutch scenario, through the widespread uptake of electric cycles The scenarios alters both the assumptions around cycling uptake and the routes choices made by cyclists, for example a reduced penalty for going up hills. Pedal cyclists incur a significant time and effort penalty from going uphill. Hence, a longer but flatter route is often faster. A good ebike can enable cyclists to ride uphill at 15 mph without breaking a sweat. Thus ebike riders may choose shorter but hillier routes than pedal cyclists.

As ebikes increase a cyclist’s range and carrying capacity while reducing effort and journey times, a world with many ebikes would expect higher levels of cycling than one with only pedal cycles.

Network type

The 'network type' reflects route choices cyclists make. There is strong evidence that cyclists prefer the most direct route, and it reduces journey times and the physical effort of cycling.

The need to prioritise creation of a network of safe & direct cycle routes, is central to Transport Scotland’s Cycling Framework for Active Travel and Active Travel Strategy Guidance. Cycling By Design defines how to achieve a high level of service for cycling, either through providing cycling facilities physically separated from traffic or on carriageway where traffic speed and volume is sufficiently low.

However, until such a safe & direct network is created, cyclists may make detours away from roads that are (or are perceived to be) dangerous. There is strong evidence that safety concerns are the main barrier to more people cycling.

Cyclestreets calculate the routes taken by cyclists, and each network type is based on one of their routeing algorithms. The route choices are based on the current road infrastructure and don’t account for planned improvements or missing links.

Examples of the two network types in Edinburgh show how different assumptions about the routes cyclists take affect where the busiest parts (pink) of the network are predicted to be.

Note that the choice of network type does not just change the routes cyclists take but also the number of cyclists predicted under each scenario. This is because quieter routes are typically longer and hillier than the direct route which discourages cycling.

Fast/Direct (preferred)

This network type should be treated as the default.

The fastest network is based on cyclists taking the most direct (legal) routes. While cyclists prefer direct routes, this will often bring them onto busy and dangerous major roads, which are a barrier to cycling without the provision of cycle infrastructure separated from traffic. Planners seeking to maximise cycling will build high-quality cycle infrastructure along main roads, which form part of the fastest cycle route network.

High quality cycle network plans, particularly in urban areas, will be based on joining up the fast/direct routes with the highest predicted numbers of cyclists to create a dense & coherent network. Supplementary guidance on how the tool should be used to generate these dense & coherent cycle networks will be developed to support cycle network planning.

Quiet/indirect

The quiet network assumes that cyclists will avoid busy roads and be willing to take significant detours. While directing cyclists away from busy roads and onto quieter back streets may seem like a good idea, it can have significant downsides. Quiet routes are often longer and more challenging to navigate as they weave around the back streets. Even if the roads are safe, longer and more complex journeys discourage cycling. The NPT captures this effect, and the total number of cyclists on the quiet route network is less than on the fast route network.

The most likely application of the ‘Quiet/Indirect’ network type is to:

• Identify potential low cost/high impact ‘quick wins’ where meaningful additions to the cycle network can be made in the very short term e.g. by filtering residential streets parallel to main roads.
• Supporting the design of Low Traffic or 20-minute Neighbourhoods.

Quiet networks work best when the directness penalty is small. For example, a city with a grid layout could alternate between roads designed for cars and streets designed for active travel.

The image above (source) shows how Amsterdam uses its grid layout to have parallel but separate networks for cars (red, orange, black) and bicycles (green). Notice how the cycling network is much denser than the car network, ensuring that cyclists almost always benefit from a more direct route.

Line Colour

The line colour option allows you to visualise different characteristics of the route network. Below the line colour option is a contextual legend which shows the meaning of the colours on the map.

Number of cyclists

The number of cyclists is the default view. It shows an estimate of the number of cyclists on each road for the selected trip purpose, network type, and scenario. The thickness of the lines in the route network is also defined by the number of cyclists, with thicker lines representing more cyclists.

Cycle friendliness

Cycle friendliness is a subjective measure representing the quality of a route segment (a section of road or path) for cycling, with a score between 0 (very low quality) and 100 (very high quality). It considers a range of factors, using data derived from OpenStreetMap.

Factors that contribute to a higher score of cycle friendliness include (as appropriate):

• Whether the cycleway is shared with motor vehicles or pedestrians,
• The type of road
• Presence of cycle infrastructure
• Speed limit
• Surface quality
• Cycle signage, 
• Any barriers or obstructions
• Path width
• Route legibility

See CycleStreets for further information, the term ‘quietness’ is used for the same measure that we call ‘cycle friendliness’.

Gradient

The average gradient of the road is shown as a percentage. Steeper roads are a barrier to cycling and affect route choice and the uptake of cycling in the scenarios. Please note in some locations where the network does follow the land contours, e.g. some bridges, the gradient will incorrectly show flat sections of network as steep. This is something we are working to resolve.

Simplified Route Network

The NPT includes a 'Simplified' toggle that streamlines the route network display. Major road corridors can be complex with multiple carriageways, cycle paths, and footways. It can be confusing to judge overall demand if the cyclists are split across multiple overlapping routes. The simplified network attempts to address this problem by combining parallel routes into a single line. However, this consolidation is intricate and may lead to a loss of detail. For a comprehensive analysis, it's advisable to consider both the simplified and the full route networks in tandem when evaluating cycling demand. This dual approach helps balance the big-picture overview with the nuanced details of specific routes.

Route Network Filters

The sliders allow you to show/hide parts of the route network. You can filter on three variables:

Numbers of cyclists

Tailor the map to display routes with a particular range of predicted cycling traffic, reflecting the selected scenario and route type.

Gradient

Set the maximum and minimum gradient of roads that are visible. Gradient measures the average gradient of the road segment as a percentage. E.g. 0% = flat, 100% = vertical cliff.

Cycle friendliness

Set the maximum and minimum quietness of roads that are visible. Quietness measures how cycle friendly the existing road is, from hostile (least friendly) to quiet (most friendly).

Data Zones

Data Zones are small statistical neighbourhoods created for the Census. In the NPT, they are used to provide contextual area-based information.

The data zone options are:

• % commuter cycling (baseline)
• % commuter cycling (Go Dutch)
• Population density (per hectare)
• Index of Multiple Deprivation (2020)
• Drive time to a petrol station
• Drive time to GP
• Drive time to post office
• Drive time to a retail centre
• Drive time to primary school
• Drive time to secondary school
• Public transport time to GP
• Public transport time to a post office
• Public transport time to a retail centre
• % without superfast broadband

Dasymetric mode

By default, the data zones are shown as a dasymetric map. This means that the buildings within a zone are coloured to display information. If you turn off dasymetric mode, a simple choropleth map is shown where the whole Data Zone is coloured. Note that the same underlying data is being visualised in both modes, and the differences between modes are merely aesthetic. However, dasymetric maps are intended to better represent the data by emphasising the true locations of people who are not uniformly distributed across the Data Zone. 

Dasymetric map (left) and choropleth map (right) for the Index of Multiple Deprivation in Edinburgh.

Other Layers

The NPT provides several supplementary map layers that enhance the contextual understanding of the cycling network

• Schools (click on a school to see current and potential future mode split data): Revealing the locations of primary, secondary, and other educational institutions, this layer allows users to click on individual schools to review the present and potential future distribution of travel modes among students
• Wards: This layer overlays the boundaries of local electoral wards onto the map
• Scottish Parliamentary Constituencies: Users can display the geographic divisions for Scottish parliamentary representation
• Scottish Parliament Regions: This adds another political layer, showing the larger regions that make up the Scottish parliamentary electoral system.
• Local Authority: Highlight the administrative areas within Scotland, aiding in planning and analysis at a local government level.