TRACE toolkit - Guidelines and recommendations on tracking walking & cycling for mobility planning and behaviour change - Entorn Urbà i Salut

Improve urban mobility planning by monitoring and modifying active mobility patterns (walking and cycling).

This guide focuses on the use of tracking and monitoring devices (based on GPS technology) for walking or cycling to collect mobility data and make decisions based on them.

It reviews all the steps necessary to design, prepare and implement a mobility monitoring campaign, explains how to evaluate it, and provides practical advice derived from the actual implementation of these campaigns in case studies.

It also provides recommendations for actors involved in the design and management of urban mobility.

Automated tracking of walking or cycling movements can inform and increase the effectiveness of a campaign to change mobility habits, and aid in the evaluation of their impact.

It also gives rise to individual “reward” mechanisms for more sustainable and healthier mobility choices. The monitoring data must be converted into useful and effective information and supported by questionnaires and other techniques that allow a response to the specific needs of the neighbourhood or city.

Notably, movement tracking applications that are effective in promoting changes in habits will not be effective in evaluating and learning from the needs and limitations that exist for the rest of the population to carry out healthier, more sustainable mobility.

This type of project requires significant investment and involvement by various actors, particularly government bodies and citizens in general.