The Velo-city 2026 conference, organized by the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), is the annual global meeting for cycling advocates, researchers, policymakers, city officials, and industry leaders. They gather to discuss the future of cycling and sustainable cities. This year, the event will be held from Tuesday, 16 June to Friday, 19 June 2026, in Rimini, Italy, with the theme “Delivering the Urban Dream.” The focus will be on helping cities turn their visions into real actions to create more livable, climate-friendly, and people-focused urban spaces through cycling, active travel, and better transport systems. HeiGIT will take part by presenting hiBike, a globally scalable bikeability assessment tool that uses open geodata and community input to assess and improve cycling conditions in cities.
Poster session: New technologies + Innovative data collection, HeiGIT presenting “hiBike: A co-created bikeability assessment tool built to inspire inclusive, resilient and active urban environments”
18 June, 15:30 – 16:00
Presenter: Danielle Gatland
Enhancing cycling conditions is key to creating liveable, low-carbon, and inclusive cities. This paper presents hiBike, a spatial and globally applicable bikeability assessment tool. hiBike evaluates the bikeability of streets worldwide using open geodata, primarily OpenStreetMap, and produces high-resolution, street-level assessments of urban bikeability.
Building on its counterpart hiWalk, hiBike integrates novel indicators rarely represented in existing bikeability assessments, such as Dooring Risk, Path Smoothness, and Surface Type, in addition to measures of network connectivity (detour factors) and accessibility. Through a co-creation process with NGOs and advocacy groups, the tool aims to take the perspective of the most vulnerable road users and to support stakeholders in their work towards cycling friendly cities for all. hiBike enables advocacy groups, planners, and policymakers to identify gaps and prioritise interventions toward sustainable mobility goals.
By combining open data, replicable methods and a participatory development process, hiBike showcases how co-creation together with data-driven insights can inspire progress towards active mobility, health, and equity. The approach bridges research and practice, offering a scalable decision-support tool to make cycling an integral part of the urban dream.