Overview
A dashboard of NZ cycling counter data — turning raw trip counts into dollars saved, CO₂ avoided, and parking that didn’t happen.
What is Ride Count NZ?
A cycling advocacy dashboard. We take the daily counter data published by Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland city councils and translate it into numbers people can feel — fuel kept in pockets, carbon kept out of the atmosphere, healthcare costs averted, car parks freed. The aim is to give cyclists, advocates, and councils a shared plain-English answer to “what does all this bike riding actually do?”
What gets counted
Every number on this site starts at a physical counter — an induction loop in the road, a camera on a pole, or an infrared sensor — that detects a bike passing a specific point. One passage = one “ride” in the totals you see.
- Included: bikes, e-bikes, cargo bikes, kids’ bikes — most counter types can’t tell them apart.
- Not counted: rides that don’t cross a counter. A back-street commute that avoids the main routes won’t appear. These figures are a sample of cycling in each city, not a total.
- Cities we cover: Christchurch (CCC SmartView), Wellington (WCC VivaCity), Auckland (AT monthly data). Smaller centres and rural rides aren’t here yet.
- Frequency: Christchurch and Wellington publish daily, so numbers move every morning. Auckland publishes monthly, so it refreshes in batches.
Why this exists
Cycling’s benefits are diffuse and often invisible — nobody writes a press release when one fewer car drives to town. Ride Count NZ converts those unrecorded wins into dollars, tonnes of CO₂, car parks, and traffic jams that didn’t happen, so bike infrastructure can be weighed against something concrete.
Who’s actually riding
The 2023 Census asked every employed New Zealander how they usually get to work. It’s the most reliable cycling benchmark we have — full population counts, not a sample.
Christchurch and Wellington cycle to work at 3–4× the national average of 1.01%.
🌿 Christchurch
3.8%
of workers cycle to work
5,724 of 150,636 workers
+33% since 2.86% in 2018
🍀 Wellington
3.1%
of workers cycle to work
3,210 of 104,589 workers
+11% since 2.79% in 2018
🌏 Auckland
0.14%
of workers cycle to work
813 of 589,674 workers
+8% since 0.13% in 2018
Floor estimate — cells <6 suppressed by Stats NZ
Source: Stats NZ, 2023 Census — Main means of travel to work (SA2-level O-D data). NZ average: 1.01%.
All-purpose cycling (not just commuting)
The Ministry of Transport Household Travel Survey captures recreational, school, and errand trips the census misses. Small city-level samples — directional only.
| City | Cycled last month | 20+ days/month |
|---|---|---|
| 🌿 Christchurch | 27% | 4.3% |
| 🍀 Wellington | 22% | 2.2% |
| 🌏 Auckland | 13% | 1.6% |
Source: MoT Household Travel Survey 2023–24. Small samples — Wellington regular cyclist figure ~41 respondents, ±21% margin of error.
Your Annual Bike Bonus
What would switching your commute to a bike actually save you in a year?
Open Bike Bonus Calculator ↗Figures are estimates. See Methodology for assumptions and sources.