Dunedin City Cordon Counts

How do people arrive in our central cities? Is it changing as we start to invest in walking, cycling and public transport? ViaStrada has run annual ‘cordon counts’ from the third one in 2022 through to the  fifth one in 2024 providing a snapshot of how people arrive at and travel through central Dunedin. 

Dunedin City Council commissioned ViaStrada to develop, run and report on the 2022-2024 iterations of the cordon count. “Cordon” refers to an imaginary boundary around the central city where surveyors were located at the most important entry/exit locations along this boundary. Surveyors were positioned at up to 30 sites around the central city to count the people and vehicles passing by. The cordon count ran in the morning peak (7:30-9:30 am) over two days: one for counting active modes and one for counting motor vehicular modes.

Methodology

Each movement into the cordon was counted by mode of travel in 15-minute increments. The location of people riding bicycles and e-scooters within the road corridor (road/cycle lane or footpath) was also counted. In 2022, ViaStrada redesigned the count forms and methods to also obtain:
•    movements exiting the central city (to estimate how many people are arriving and staying versus moving through)
•    The occupancy of cars, buses, and trucks
•    The gender of people walking and cycling

Findings

With five years of data (2020-2024), the ability to understand trends in travel behaviour has continued to grow to give us a fuller picture of travel patterns.

For the most recent 2024 Dunedin Central City Cordon Count, ViaStrada submitted a 10-page infographic summary along with the detailed report and spreadsheet with all the data gathered. One of the key findings is that nearly as many people (46%) “arrive and stay” in the central city by “green modes” (public transport, walking, cycling & scooting) as arrive by car (51%) with the rest arriving by truck, taxi and motorcycle. Women made up the majority (56%) of pedestrians but the minority of cyclists (33%). The survey shows which of the 30 entry points into the central city are busiest for each mode of transport while tracking changes over the five years that the survey has been running.