Let’s talk about Cycling Guide numbers
We’ve had quite an eventful summer, with our Cycling Guide mobile app introducing the best available low-stress, cycling-friendly routes to three new regions: Halifax, Ottawa, and Sarnia-Lambton. And, of course, we still provide routes in Waterloo Region and Guelph, as we have since our launch in 2023.
And use of the app has increased dramatically! The numbers really have been something to see. How do we know that? Read on!
This summer, we introduced some under-the-hood functionality to help us better understand how people use the app. Specifically, it would be helpful for us to know the following:
- Monthly Active Users
- Weekly Active Users
- Daily Active Users
This information is important to our partners in the four regions where the app provides routes, as it gives an idea of how many people are using the app. That’s also of interest to funding organizations, for obvious reasons. We’ve added functionality in Cycling Guide to pass information to the server (without tracking individuals in any way) indicating if the app has been used on a given day, within a given calendar week, or within a given month. And you’ll see shortly what we’ve learned.
This summer we also introduced screens that thank our supporters. We tried to do this with some care, showing a screen briefly when someone selects a Region to use. And a supporter screen will be shown again in seven days. We wanted to balance a great user experience with our desire to express our sincerest thanks to the partners and supporters who help make the app possible. We think we have the balance right, minimizing the interruption, but we’ll know more as the year progresses.
So what have we learned so far? The most meaningful number that I’ll share today is Monthly Active Users. In July, the Cycling Guide app was used by 1,038 people. Most of them were in Waterloo Region. That’s because while we introduced three new Regions in time for Canada Day, our partners hadn’t yet publicized the app widely by month’s end.
But that changed in August when Bike Ottawa and Halifax Cycling Coalition started to publicize the app more widely, including through news stories in legacy media like radio, TV, and newspaper. While the reach of those media may be dramatically lower than in years past, the impact is still significant. Marketers call appearances there “earned media”, and it can be invaluable in getting the word out. After an appearance on CTV News (TV) and CBC Radio, the impact on our usage was staggering.
Looking back at the month of August, the Cycling Guide app was used by 5,020 people. That’s more than quadruple what we saw in all of July!.
We’ve seen a corresponding increase in our installed base. While Apple and Google present things differently, we can still extract and assemble numbers that tell us how many people have installed Cycling Guide. At the end of July, around 3,210 people had installed the app on their phone (around 2,150 for iPhone and 1,060 for Android). As of today, those numbers have jumped dramatically. Around 7,725 people have installed the app on their phone (around 4,850 for iPhone and 2,875 for Android).
What does it all mean? Really, it’s too soon to say with any confidence, but it does look like there’s an unmet demand for cycling routes that avoid the stress of riding with traffic. And Cycling Guide is starting to meet that demand.
