How does the intensity of bicycle traffic change in Wrocław during the autumn-winter period, and do year-round cyclists change their habits at that time? These are the questions asked by researchers from our Faculty in collaboration with the developers of the Strava application. At WUST, the work will be led by Prof. Radosław Michalski from the Department of Artificial Intelligence and member of Academia Professorum Iuniorum.

Do you cycle seasonally or all year round?

– I am a cycling enthusiast and I try to use this mode of transport all year round. When cycling in the autumn-winter period, I observed a decrease in the number of cyclists on the streets and I began to wonder how significant these changes are and whether maybe cyclists who normally ride on regular roadways start to use other routes – says Prof. Radosław Michalski.

In performing this research, our specialists from the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology will be aided by employees from the Office of Sustainable Mobility of the Wrocław City Hall and representatives of the Gajowice Estate Council. They want to jointly conduct bicycle traffic analyses on two levels – a general city-wide and a more local, focused on the particular housing estate. 

The project "Winter is Coming: Analysing Cyclists’ Behaviour in Autumn and Wintertime in Wroclaw", will be informed by the data generated by cyclists who use the Strava app on a daily basis. The scientists are primarily interested in how they moved in consecutive months from August to April over the past five years. 

– We seek to understand how exactly the intensity of bicycle traffic changes over this period. Where does it remain at a steady level, and where does it move from the roadway to more cyclist-friendly infrastructure? All data is, of course, anonymised, so we will not be tracking the routes of individual people; the analysis method is rather aggregated,” explains Prof. Michalski.

Scientists also want to investigate whether the cycling infrastructure developed in recent years (such as two-lane bike paths) positively impacts the number of cyclists who continue to use it in autumn and winter, as compared to roads or pavements.

In their work, the scientists will employ classical computational methods and make limited use of artificial intelligence, which is intended as an aid when the application user fails to specify whether they ride for sports or for commuting to school or work. 

–Interestingly, I always thought that Strava users utilised the app for typical sports activities, but it turns out that many people treat it like a regular bike computer. First analyses were also somewhat concerning, as the speeds reached by cyclists on some roads reach up to 60 km/h – admits the researcher.

Unique data

Data anonymisation complicates estimations of the actual number of cyclists on the steets of Wrocław from autumn to spring, but the researchers are able to observe how much traffic is carried by individual road sections. Based on this information they identify places in Wrocław that are heavily used by cyclists during the winter.

– Now we need to normalise this data in order to find the number of unique users. This number will certainly be different for the warmer seasons, but the main goal is to understand how cyclists change their movement patterns when it gets colder. This vast amount of data which need to be analysed is actually one of the greatest challenges in the project – explains Prof. Radosław Michalski.

The scientific results of the research will consist in the identification and development of methods that can be used for conducting detailed analyses in such projects. The second effect will be precise results that are expected to enable city officials to understand whether and how the cycling infrastructure is used during the autumn-winter period. In the future, these materials may serve to inform the planned expansion expansion of cycling paths and routes.

– Although Wrocław does perform some studies on cyclist mobility, they are carried out only in specific locations. With the data from the application, we can track cycling patterns throughout the entire city, and these are truly unique data – the scientist emphasises.

– We would like to trigger works on a report that on the one hand would assist city authorities in further developing cycling policies, and on the other hand serve as a tool for us, cyclists, to self-evaluate and better understand how our commuting habits change in the autumn and winter months – he adds.

Research grant

The research will be conducted as part of the „Strava Metro for Academic Researchers Program grant awarded by Strava, which developed a mobile application allowing users to track activities across dozens of different disciplines, including cycling. In 2025, it was used by more than 135 million people.

Scientists will have access to the data from the app until the end of January 2026. Specialists from Strava will also be involved in the work, offering support in case of any problems with the data collected in the system. Plans also include organising training sessions and meetings for all teams which carry out projects under the "Strava Metro for Academic Researchers Program" grant.

The first edition of the programme attracted 200 project proposals from universities around the world, ten of which were eventually selected for implementation. The research will be conducted by scientists among others from the University of Sydney (Australia), New York University (USA), the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), and Wrocław University of Science and Technology.