Smartphone app launched to help improve Glasgow's cycle network

Glasgow’s cyclist are being encouraged to use a new smartphone app to share their journeys with others in a bid to make the cycle network of Scotland’s largest city better.

Routes taken and information regarding average speed and distance and time travelled will be captured by the Glasgow Cycling app and posted online anonymously.

It will appear on the Future City Glasgow open data website, set up after the city beat 29 other cities to win £24 million in funding in a competition run by the government agency InnovateUK.

The information uploaded from the app, which is currently available for Apple’s iOS with an Android version to be launched soon, will enable Glasgow City Council to determine where improvements to the city’s cycle network should be made.

Gordon Matheson, leader of Glasgow City Council, said: "Cycling has huge mental and physical health benefits for individuals as well as environmental advantages for the city.

"The number of cyclists coming into the city has increased drastically but Glasgow City Council is keen to encourage even more people to cycle both for leisure and commuting.

"This new app will provide accurate information which will be extremely helpful when decisions are being made on where and how to upgrade or extend cycling facilities.

“I hope bikers will seize this chance to contribute directly to work to make Glasgow more bike friendly."

Glasgow Bike Station’s Victoria Leiper welcomed the app’s launch, saying:"This is our opportunity, as cycle commuters to shape decision-making.

"It is perhaps the most pro-active thing we can do and I certainly plan to use the app every day to submit my own journeys and to encourage our customers at the Glasgow Bike Station to use it as well."

The app also has the backing of Cycling Scotland whose chief executive, Keith Irving, said: "All councils should be increasing monitoring of cycling levels.

"This initiative by Future City Glasgow combines technology with data to develop information about cycling conditions in Glasgow.

"We hope it will be successful and could feature in a future Cycling Scotland conference as best practice to be copied across the country," he added.

According to Glasgow City Council, over the past seven years the number of trips in and out of the city centre made by bike has trebled to stand at 9,255 a day.