I heard a scientist say “if we can’t quantify it then it doesn’t exist.” So what if we could count and reward cycling customers? Who would that benefit?
- Business districts especially struggling local shopping areas and ‘high streets’
- Councils to understand more about biking behaviour
- Extra motivation for new or potential bike users
- Non bike users might be influenced to see the value, benefit and amount of bike use.
Imagine that! And It can be done thanks to clever technology. I love a loyalty program that doesn’t involve carrying yet another card around. And I bet businesses would love the coffee drinking, cake eating, present buying, bike users who have more money for fun because less is spent on petrol.
So maybe rather than focusing on car parking (my local council is considering stumping up $1million to provide ‘one hour free in the cbd‘) we could make more areas bike friendly and show just how much bikes are welcome by counting and rewarding their use.
Now there’s an idea!
bikeswelcome.org 
What about a campaign to get supermarkets allow an option for cyclists of a discount on next visit instead of cheaper petrol, or perhaps a credit on their snapper card. There are large potential cost saving to supermarkets of not having to supply extra car parks. It would be good to do some research to quantify that!
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