Faith and Val are joined in the studio by Dr Afshin Jafar, Research Fellow at RMIT University. We all share our bike moments and wax lyrical about Friday evening's Critical Mass ride along Sydney Road to protest the diabolical detours proposed by the LXRP while the Upfield Path is closed for construction. 

Dr Jafar reminds us that in addition to the well known benefits of bike riding and the community it builds, like Critical Mass, we also need quantifiable benefits to support business cases for infrastructure that allows people to move around safely by bike. Finding a way to model these benefits to specific contaxts has remained a challenge which is why RMIT has been working on a tool for bicycle infrastructure investment analysis. 

With greater nuance in its modelling of the diversity of riders the tool combines spatial, infrastructure and safety data integration, demand forecasting and econometric scenario projections to understand how to best achieve successful rollouts that maximise the benefits of cycling as a transport mode. A recent case study in Bendigo provides some insight into how the tool might work. 

While we ran out of time to mention it on the program don't forget that Melbourne Bike Rave is coming up this coming weekend!