User Needs and Monitoring
Efficient integration of active and public transport relies on accurate data to understand travel patterns and to optimize the connections between the two modes, ensuring that infrastructure, services, and funding strategies are targeted effectively, improving user experience, increasing ridership, and supporting long-term financial and environmental sustainability.
Reveals real mobility patterns
Big data helps uncover how, when, and why people travel, showing true first- and last-mile connections and highlighting where active modes link best with public transport.
Supports evidence-based planning
Travel behaviour analysis ensures that decisions about infrastructure, routes, and services are grounded in real demand rather than assumptions, making investments more efficient and user-focused.
Enables real-time insights
Continuous data collection, such as from GPS, mobile phones, or ticketing systems, allows planners to track dynamic changes in travel demand, adapt services quickly, and respond to new mobility trends.
Makes data clear through visualization
Turning complex datasets into maps, heatmaps, or dashboards makes mobility flows easy to understand, helping decision-makers, stakeholders, and the public engage with findings and support action.
Data collection systems
A well-functioning data collection system is crucial for connecting active and public transport modes in an effective way. Comprehensive data provides valuable insights into how people move across a city or region, from their first and last mile choices to their preferred modes of transport and peak travel times. By collecting information on passenger flows, cycling and walking patterns, and transfer behaviors, planners and operators can design infrastructure and services that truly match user needs. For example, knowing where demand for cycling connections highest helps justify the creation of secure bike parking or dedicated bike lanes at public transportation hubs. Similarly, data on pedestrian flows can support safer crossings, better signage, or shorter transfer distances. In short, reliable and detailed data ensures that planning is evidence-based, helping to avoid investments in facilities that remain underused.
Beyond infrastructure, data also plays a key role in long-term system management and financial planning. Continuous monitoring allows authorities to track changing travel trends, evaluate the effectiveness of new measures, and forecast future demand more accurately. Data-driven insights support decisions on where to allocate funding and help demonstrate the value of investments to municipalities, operators, and funding agencies. Importantly, shared data systems create opportunities for collaboration between stakeholders, enabling integrated solutions across ticketing, pricing, and service coordination. Without strong data collection, integration between active and public transport risks being fragmented, financially inefficient, and less attractive for users. By contrast, when data is systematically collected and used, it forms the foundation for a transport system that is both user-friendly and financially sustainable.
Good Practice
CikloParking
CikloParking is a professional initiative for developing the National Database of Bicycle Parking Supply and Demand, based on a WebGIS platform. The system includes applications and surveys for collecting and analysing data on existing bicycle infrastructure and demand, enabling effective planning and mobility management.
Monitoring and impact assessment
Monitoring and impact assessment are vital for ensuring that the integration of active and public transport achieves its intended outcomes. While planning and investment decisions set the foundation, ongoing monitoring allows authorities to understand whether new facilities, services, or policies are delivering value for users. This involves tracking key indicators such as ridership levels, active travel uptake, transfer times, accessibility improvements, and user satisfaction. Impact assessment goes beyond usage data to measure broader benefits, including reductions in congestion, environmental gains, and health improvements from more walking and cycling as well as its combination with public transport. By systematically evaluating these effects, planners and operators can confirm the effectiveness of their strategies and justify further investment in multi-modal connections.
Equally important, monitoring provides a feedback loop that supports continuous improvement. Not every measure will work as intended, and without structured evaluation, shortcomings may remain unnoticed. Impact assessment helps identify which interventions are most cost-effective and where adjustments are needed, whether in infrastructure, service design, or ticketing integration. Furthermore, transparent reporting of impacts strengthens accountability and helps build public and political support for future projects. By embedding monitoring and evaluation into every stage of transport planning, implementation and operation, decision-makers ensure that resources are used efficiently, user needs remain central, and long-term goals—such as sustainability, accessibility, and financial viability—are consistently advanced.
Good Practice
Traffic monitoring and urban mobility
Viisight’s behavioural recognition video understanding technology transforms video surveillance into a proactive and predictive solution. By analysing vast video streams in real-time, it enables automatic detection of critical events, enhancing safety and security in urban areas, businesses, and public spaces while optimizing resources and loss prevention.
Travel behaviour analysis, big data & visualization
Understanding travel behaviour is a cornerstone of integrating active and public transport modes. By analyzing how, when, and why people move, planners gain insights into first- and last-mile choices, preferred transfer points, and the barriers that discourage multi-modal journeys. Traditional surveys provide valuable detail, but in recent years, the use of big data—such as mobile phone records, GPS traces, smart card usage, and shared mobility platforms—has expanded the possibilities for large-scale, real-time analysis. However, the collection and processing of such data must be carefully managed to ensure compliance with GDPR and other data protection regulations. This allows planners not only to see overall demand patterns but also to capture dynamic changes, such as seasonal variations, special event impacts, or responses to new infrastructure. With this evidence, strategies can be tailored to actual behaviour rather than assumptions, making investments more effective and user-focused.
Visualization of this data is equally important, as it turns complex information into clear insights for both experts and decision-makers. Mapping tools, heatmaps, and interactive dashboards make it easier to identify mobility flows, underserved areas, and the most promising locations for improvements. By communicating data visually, technical findings become accessible to a wider audience, supporting transparent decision-making and stakeholder engagement. Combined, behaviour analysis, big data, and visualization enable a deeper understanding of the relationship between active and public transport, ensuring that planning is not only evidence-based but also easy to communicate and monitor over time. This creates a foundation for smarter investments, more resilient transport systems, and stronger public trust in the planning process.
Good Practice
Turning Numbers into Dialogue with Mobility reports from Budapest
The Centre for Budapest Transport (BKK) publishes its mobility report every month. In these reports, BKK publishes important data for the public in a well-structured, easy-to-read way through a series of infographics. These reports cover all modes of transportation, and the topics of the report usually include an evaluation of the impacts of certain changes to the city's transportation system.
Good Practice
The Walkability App: Evidence-Based Tool for Inclusive Planning
Transform mobility with the Walkability App. This free, participatory tool captures fine-grained, geo-located data on walking experiences to help cities prioritize people-friendly interventions around public transport stations. By disaggregating data by age, gender, and ability, it ensures that planning is inclusive and responsive to the real-world needs of diverse populations.
Learn more
The project Active2Public Transport is supported by the Interreg Danube Region Programme project co-funded by the European Union. The project was initiated by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure (BMIMI), Department II/6 in cooperation with klimaaktiv mobil – the Austrian Federal climate protection initiative on sustainable mobility.