Cycling does Matter

What has the city of Toronto done to improve the urban cycling experience?

Why we focus on the cycling in city of Toronto?

Cycling has become one of the most important part in sustainable mobility. Toronto ranks 22th in public transport frequency and 16th in bikes per 1000 people, which makes it becoming a sustainable city.

High public transport frequency

Public transport in Toronto can make 154 trips per stop per day, which rank 22th among the main cities as mentioned

Large bicycle holdings

There are about 1.4 bikes per 1000 people in the city of Toronto, which rank the sixteenth among the main big cities in the world

Low carbon emission

Toronto’s sustainable public transport has a wider reach because of the improved cycling infrastructure in Toronto.

Positive cycling policy

The independent section for cycling on the Toronto official website offers rich information including 9 cycling infrastructure modules and effective cycling policies

Problem: Bicycle Theft

Bicycle theft frequency changed from 2014 to 2020, and characters of theft cases can be found

Data source: https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/bicycle-thefts/


This choropleth map shows that the bike theft cases are concentrated in the south of Toronto which is the core area.



  • The overall trend is upward and has peaked at over 2300 cases in 2018, because of rapidly increasing bike use and lack of locking stations for bikes.
  • The reason for the rebound in 2020 is that COVID-19 has caused a bike boom.
  • The frequencies in the core areas have decreased in the last two years because of the government policies and suggestions.

Bicycle Theft Characters

In addition to the above frequency change data presentation, the bicycle theft case portrait can be drawn to highlight theft patterns in the city of Toronto

Data source: https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/bicycle-thefts/


There are 3 characters for neighbourhood bicycle theft portraits but the differences of the theft bike cost are not extremely obvious.

Area Characters Description
Low risk area 120 neighbourhoods in blue, low cost of theft bike ($1000)
Medium risk area 16 neighbourhoods in purple, high cost ($1030)
High risk area 3 neighbourhoods in yellow, medium cost ($1050)

* Three risk area levels: 40 theft case (Low), 350 case (Medium) and 1300 case (High)

* Cost of bike: the average level cost of theft bike calculated by each neighbourhood

Solution: Bicycle Parking Racks

Analysis the bicycle spatial distribution and parking capacity

Data source: https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/bicycle-parking-racks/


  • The map shows a positive correlation between the distribution of parking racks and the theft rates.
  • However, the installation of parking racks in places with high theft rates, such as the city centre, may cause a waste of the prime areas.
  • Here the government popularised a Bike-sharing plan.

Future Mobility: Bike Share

Because of parkings' limitation, bike share can be a good supply for highly increasing demand after covid-19

Data source: https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/bike-share-toronto-ridership-data/


  • Most of the bike-sharing stations are concentrated in the city centre and bike-sharing is also used more frequently in the city centre than elsewhere.
  • Total bike-sharing traffic shows a fluctuating upward trend and is influenced by seasonal factors.

About Us

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Mengqing Zhao

mengqing.zhao.20@ucl.ac.uk

Zeqiang Fang

zeqiang.fang.19@ucl.ac.uk

Junkai Ding

junkai.ding.20@ucl.ac.uk

Yujie Lyu

yujie.lyu.20@ucl.ac.uk

Our Presentation

Welcome to Group 9's playground. Our presentation video about our story is given below.