Press ReleaseFor Immediate ReleaseBrussels – 18th May 2015

The European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) has published its second Cycling Barometer this May. The groundbreaking new benchmark report was launched for the first time in 2013 and it provided a multi-dimensional view on cycling in all 27 EU countries.



“In God we trust, everyone else must bring data” This iconic quote from the former mayor of New-York summarizes perfectly the challenges of today policy decision making. In terms of cycling the challenge is enormous: there is no reliable and updated data on cycling at the national level across the EU. Comparing European countries and the state of their cycling across numerous fields is still a tricky task today, even within the European Union. Different national statistics and lack of data collection make it hard to be certain about the cycling record of each country. In light of this, the ECF Cycling Barometer has taken 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.



After two years ECF has decided to take a look at how things have changed since 2013 and what could be seen from the new data available, with Croatia –the newest member of the EU – included as well. “The ECF Barometer was built as a talking point to raise awareness on the need to get good cycling data. It was a big success last time so we hope to see the discussion continue again this year” says Chloé Mispelon , ECF project leader for the barometer. Indeed, in the last two years the European Commission published two Flash Eurobarometers including cycling data. That’s more than in the 5 previous years.



The results:



Like in 2013, Denmark and the Netherlands once again come out on top, with the same four countries following close behind: Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Belgium. Slovenia jumped the most ranks to 7th place, surpassing countries like the UK and France. Luxembourg also leapt forward, most likely due to a good cycling fatalities record and great cycling advocate numbers/population. Spain jumped forward mainly due to improvement in all five criteria. Some countries have more or less maintained their relative positions – like Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic – and similarly to 2013 countries in the South and East of Europe still show a lot of room for improvement. One disappointment in this year’s barometer is the bad score for Ireland, despite great cycling developments in Dublin, as they went down in ranking due to the cycling use criteria.



Rank Country Rank Country Rank Country Rank Country 1 Denmark 10= Slovakia 19 Estonia 28 Romania 2 Netherlands UK 20 Poland 3 Sweden 12 France 21= Bulgaria 4 Finland 13 Luxembourg Ireland 5 Germany 14 Czech Republic Latvia 6 Belgium 15 Lithuania 24= Greece 7 Slovenia 16 Croatia Malta 8 Hungary 17 Italy 26 Cyprus 9 Austria 18 Spain 27 Portugal

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Notes to the editor:

A technical note explaining the source of the data used for the ECF Cycling Barometer can be downloaded from here.

Infographics and photographs can be found here

About the European Cyclists’ Federation:

With over 80 members across more than 40 countries, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) unites cyclists’ associations from across the globe, giving them a voice on the international level. Our aim is to get more people cycling more often by influencing policy in favour of cycling.

www.ecf.com

@EuCyclistsFed



About Velo-city 2015:

Velo-city, the world summit on cycling, has been around for more than 30 years, born of a vision by ECF - European Cyclists’ Federation – whose aim is to bring together associations and organisations involved in the promotion of cycling in Europe and across the world.

More specifically, the Velo-city conference series boost the integration of cycling planning into all the relevant policy sectors including transport planning, land development, public health, education, environment, economy, energy and citizenship…



www.velo-city.com/en

@Velocity2015

Chloe Mispelon, ECF Communications Officer

+32 (0)2 8809 281

c.mispelon@ecf.com