Scooters often faster than cars

Minister Schultz wants to allow Amsterdam to ban scooters from cycle paths and make them use the road, wearing a helmet. This should make cycle paths safer for cyclists and reduce their exposure to air pollution. However, car and scooter lobbyists argue that the speed difference between scooters and cars is too large for scooters to ride safely on the road, with motorists driving 50 kmph.

So do motorists really make 50 kmph in Amsterdam? «Cycling professor» Marco te Brömmelstroet has tweeted a map showing rush hour speeds far below 50 kmph.

As part of its open data initiative, Amsterdam has released some 5 million speed measurements at the «Hoofdnet Auto» (the network of major roads for cars) during the month of January 2014. The histogram above shows that even at these main roads, the majority of measurements recorded a speed below 50 kmph, with a median speed of 31 kmph. Average speeds during afternoon rush hour were about 5 kmph lower than at night.

A 2011 study by cyclists’ organisation Fietsersbond found found an average speed for scooters on Amsterdam’s cycle paths of 36.9 kmph. The map shows roads where motorists drive on average at least 36.9 kmph (thin red line) or 50 kmph (thick red line). Note that the method by which the Fietsersbond measured scooter speed may be different from the method used to measure car speed.

There have been jokes that scooter riders don’t want to use the road because this would force them to reduce their speed. The data of the Amsterdam government show there’s actually some truth to this.

Scripts for processing the data can be found here.