Our biannual city-centre traffic count*, on Tuesday 11 November, unusually fell on a day with significant rain forecast. The morning hour (8-9am) did stay dry, though cold, and, despite the forecast, cyclists formed 14.2% of all vehicles, almost unchanged from the 14.4% in last November’s bright and sunny count day. However at lunchtime, when, admittedly, many bike trips are optional, there was not just rain, but a major downpour: bike numbers plummeted and car and taxi numbers rose, resulting in bikes falling from 10.2% of all vehicles last year to 5.6% in 2025.
*Count arrangements: The four Spokes city centre counts are northbound and southbound at Lothian Road and Forrest Road. For comparability, counts are always at the same times of day, same day of the week, and same times of year (May and November). However, they are of course only snapshots on one particular day, and can be affected by one-off factors such as roadworks or weather extremes.
Morning, 8-9am
Compared to November 2024, bike numbers (381->362) and car numbers (1468->1397) both fell in our morning count, with only minor change in commercial traffic, leaving bikes at 14.2% of all vehicles, very similar to last year’s 14.4%. Car numbers fell by very roughly 10% at both Forrest Road count points and southbound on Lothian Road, but rose 7% northbound on Lothian Road.
Thanks to the fall in car numbers at Forrest Road, bikes formed 23.4% of all citybound vehicles at this location, our highest 8-9am citybound post-pandemic figure here.
Lunchtime, 1230-1330
Our dedicated count volunteers struggled with soaked recording sheets during the downpour, but managed to supply figures nonetheless!
Bikes fell drastically (183–>103) whilst car rose significantly (852->954) as did commercial (758->794), the latter possibly accounted for by taxi-ing in the rain. As a result, bikes fell from 10.2% of all vehicles in our November 2024 count, our highest post-pandemic lunchtime figure, to just 5.6%, our lowest!
Citybound, the fall in bike numbers, at both count points, was huge (94->40) whereas the southbound fall, although large, was less drastic (89->63). Car numbers rose at all 4 count points, drastically southbound at Forrest Road.
Car single-occupancy
Whether due to the weather, or other factors, car single occupancy rose to our highest recorded post-pandemic figures both in the morning (78.5% of all cars) and at lunchtime (71.9%). The biggest rise in single-occupancy, both morning and lunchtime, was citybound in Forrest Road.
Northbound v. southbound: Interestingly, in all our post-pandemic counts, car single-occupancy at Forrest Road has been greater northbound than southbound in the 8-9am count, but greater southbound at lunchtime. Could this be related to the nearby private school? Lothian Road shows much less variation, although 8-9am does show the same pattern to a lesser extent.
Morning v. lunchtime: Again comparing our post-pandemic counts, Lothian Road single-occupancy is consistently higher in the 8-9am counts than at lunchtime. However, at Forrest Road, northbound single-occupancy is drastically higher than at lunchtime, whilst southbound single-occupancy is somewhat lower in the morning than at lunchtime – presumably for the same reasons as in the para above.
Thanks
Many thanks to all our count volunteers, and organiser Guy – particularly on such an unpleasant day!
Resources …
- Full count data are here
- See also our count data page for earlier surveys, trends and reports
- See our previous wet-day count report (pre-pandemic, so under old traffic patterns)
- Please repost our bluesky of the count