Cycle Skills Network Audit

A CSNA of part of Hackney

Transport Initiatives’ Cycle Skills Network Audit (CSNA) is recommended in the LCWIP guidance. The CSNA scores every road, path and cycletrack in terms of the level of skill and experience needed to cycle along it, and every crossing (refuge, zebra, parallel, pelican, puffin etc.) in terms of the skill needed to use it. The criteria is based on the Bikeability Levels used in the Bikeability national cycle training scheme.

  • Level 1 is about controlling your bike.
  • Level 2 is usually taught in the later years of primary school and equips people to cycle on most residential roads and is considered a good proxy for roads people returning to cycling find acceptable.
  • Level 3 gives skills for busier roads.

Crossings over roads can also be scored in the same way. The basic output is a map showing the suitability of roads for cycling and how easy it is to use crossings.

Part of a School Travel Map for Elthorne Park High School in Ealing

So, what can it be used for? The first and obvious use is as a map to show which roads are suitable for cycling and which aren’t. We’ve used CSNA information to make green travel maps for Leicester University and schools in Ealing. You do need to add additional information to make the maps more intelligible to the lay person. We included recommended cycle route information on the Leicester University Green Travel Map.

Part of Seaford

The next is to work out where cycling needs to be made safer. If you have used the Propensity to Cycle Tool or a consultation exercise to work out where cyclists want to travel, comparing the ‘where do cyclists want to go’ map with a CSNA map can show where interventions are needed.

Warrington. Direct access from the route network to the dark green areas, off peak access to the light green areas and access only if you can handle busy roads to the orange areas

In Warrington we used a CSNA to show how much of the town their cycle route network served. We said that any part of the town that could be reached using their network plus level 1 and level 2 roads was served by the network. And from that, obviously, anywhere that required cycling along a Level 3 (or greater) road, wasn’t. Our analysis thus showed where the Council could usefully target interventions.

Porosity analysis for East Oxford Mini Holland.

The CSNA is an extremely useful input to a Porosity Analysis. Porosity (or permeability) is a measure of how easy it is to travel through an area. The basic idea is that interconnected groups of streets that we assessed as ‘level 2’ (safe for novice cyclists) form little networks suitable for cycling. These cells are separated by barriers such as rivers, railways, level 3+ roads or continuous development. The number of crossings between these cells and how well they are linked together determine how porous the area is and thus how easy it is to cycle though it. A good example is our work in East Oxford.

(Posted 12/03/24)