FITNESS APP DATA ACCURACY IN COUNTING PED & BIKE COMMUTERS

-> The data collected by the fitness app Strava (http://bit.ly/1WNyrcp) turns out to be a pretty accurate way to get a handle on how many people commute on foot or by bike. Fitness apps like Strava collect data about how people move around using GPS, which is less subjective. Some cities are already using its data aggregation and analysis spinoff, Strava Metro (http://bit.ly/2cQzt4B), for city planning. But fitness apps have their own problems — since the people who use them probably aren’t all that representative of the broader population. To double-check Strava’s tracking data, scientists with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compared it with census data in four US cities: Austin, Denver, Nashville, and San Francisco. (http://bit.ly/2diAWU3) The Strava data tracked pretty closely with what the surveys reported. http://bit.ly/2cnZkUf

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.