Skip to main content

Copenhagen ‘a haven for cyclists’

According to citymetric.com, Copenhagen is a haven for cyclists. They have a special orange cycling bridge over the harbour and everything from mail to Christmas trees is delivered by cycle. In the city there are more cycles than people, while a traffic system encourages the residents to cycle, with the promise of a stop-free ride into the city. It's all thanks to a traffic management system known as the Green Wave, which operates at peak times. Traffic signage is timed such that, if a cyclist travels at
January 9, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
According to citymetric.com, Copenhagen is a haven for cyclists. They have a special orange cycling bridge over the harbour and everything from mail to Christmas trees is delivered by cycle. In the city there are more cycles than people, while a traffic system encourages the residents to cycle, with the promise of a stop-free ride into the city.

It's all thanks to a traffic management system known as the Green Wave, which operates at peak times. Traffic signage is timed such that, if a cyclist travels at a steady 20km per hour, they should be able to travel all the way into town without hitting a red light. This has the added benefit of ensuring that cyclists move at about the same pace, thereby creating safer cycle lanes. In the evenings, the system is reversed, so cyclists leaving the city can travel home uninterrupted.

The Green Wave was first launched in 2007 on Nørrebrogade, a main street in the city centre. By 2012, the number of cyclists on the street had risen by 20 per cent, so the system has since been rolled out to other streets around the city.

The one downside, of course, is for cyclists who live centrally but cycle out of the city in the mornings. These, though, are in the minority, so there are far fewer cycles on these routes, and fewer safety issues to contend with.

Now, the city is introducing another, similar system, which detects cyclists approaching an intersection: if enough cyclists are moving together, the light will stay green until they pass.

Related Content

  • New research finds distracted driving on the rise on I-95
    May 12, 2014
    Transurban-Fluor and AAA Mid-Atlantic have released the second annual report on distracted drivers on I-95 in Northern Virginia, which found that despite major construction, distracted driving is a growing problem on the heavily travelled corridor. The report, part of the Orange Cones, No Phones campaign focused on reducing distracted driving in the 95 Express Lanes construction zone, found that the number of frequent I-95 drivers likely to use their cell phone while driving has increased from 56 percent i
  • Red, yellow, green - and WHITE?!
    July 19, 2024
    What on earth is ‘white phase’? Ali Hajbabaie from North Carolina State University tells Adam Hill why red, yellow and green lights may soon no longer be enough at traffic lights
  • "AI can help fast-track Net Zero and Vision Zero," says VivaCity
    January 16, 2024
    Artificial intelligence isn't just about self-driving cars - and ‘smart’ doesn't always have to be shiny, new and innovative. Mark Nicholson, CEO at VivaCity, offers a few predictions for 2024...
  • Here: AI has place in ‘privacy by design’
    June 23, 2020
    Artificial intelligence may improve traffic in cities and keep location data private, but Here Technologies shows that it only takes four points of anonymous data to predict your identity.