New Plymouth Annual Cordon Count

ViaStrada reviewed New Plymouth District Council’s current active transport cordon count methodology, plus their thoughts on potential modifications. We delivered a memo on our proposed methodology that:

1. establishes a complete cordon without gaps
2. focuses on the central city, so as to reduce the chances of active transport commuters living within the cordon
3. incorporates counts for key motor vehicle corridors, to determine mode splits as required by the new KPI
4. has a method for comparing with the previous count locations, to maintain analysis over time.

To assist with this, we also provided an updated data capture form and a presentation for briefing the surveyors, plus were available to answer questions while NPDC staff were preparing to train the surveyors.

NPDC commissioned and trained the cordon count surveyors, then provided the raw data to ViaStrada. We analysed the data, provided a report detailing the method, and examined the two relevant KPIs regarding mode share and the number of people commuting by bicycle, plus provided an analysis spreadsheet that continues the site-by-site comparison over time.