Building high-quality bicycle networks requires knowledge of existing bicycle infrastructure. However, bicycle network data often suffer from unknown, heterogeneous, or low quality, impeding planners, researchers, and advocates who need accurate information for urban planning, data maintenance, and cycling advocacy. In particular, bicycle-specific data have unique complexities that require a specialized approach to quality assessment to ensure that data accurately reflect real-world conditions.

To address these challenges, we developed BikeDNA, an open-source tool specifically designed for assessing the quality of bicycle infrastructure data. BikeDNA evaluates OpenStreetMap and other datasets, providing planners, researchers, and advocates with a detailed and reproducible overview of data quality within a target area. This tool includes tailor-made metrics for bicycle infrastructure, assessing network structure and connectivity, and enabling users to perform both standalone and comparative analyses. By incorporating feature matching between OpenStreetMap and reference datasets, BikeDNA highlights discrepancies and spatial variations, offering a comprehensive view of data quality across an entire study area or within specific grid cells. BikeDNA’s interactive maps and HTML/PDF reports allow for easy visualization and sharing.

With BikeDNA, users gain valuable insights into the quality and consistency of bicycle infrastructure data in their areas of interest. The tool’s detailed quality metrics reveal spatial discrepancies and variations, helping planners identify areas needing improvement and supporting targeted data enhancement. BikeDNA facilitates comparative evaluations that enhance data quality in OpenStreetMap and support the development of high-quality bicycle networks.

Use the tool here: https://github.com/anerv/BikeDNA