WeCount

WeCount aims to empower citizens to take a leading role in the production of data, evidence and knowledge around mobility in their own neighborhoods, and at street level. The project will follow participatory citizen science methods to co-create and use innovative low cost, automated, road traffic counting sensors (i.e. Telraam) and multi-stakeholder engagement mechanisms in 5 pilots in Madrid, Ljubljana, Dublin, Cardiff and Leuven. Following this approach, we will be able to quantify local road transport (cars, Heavy Goods Vehicles, active travel modes and speed), produce scientific knowledge in the field of mobility and environmental pollution, and co-design informed solutions to tackle a variety of road transport challenges. Moreover, the project will provide cost-effective data for local authorities, at a far greater temporal and spatial scale than what would be possible in classic traffic counting campaigns, thereby opening up new opportunities for transportation policy making and research. In WeCount, we empower citizens to develop evidence-led interventions into the political discourse on civic and environmental issues. By putting citizens at the heart of the innovation process, the project seeks to overcome existing technological and societal silos so that citizens can champion a new perspective on road transport that take into account their own concerns in pursuit of better quality of life and more equitable, healthy futures.
Transport & Mobility Leuven is coordinating this project, together with UWE and IFC, and takes the lead in the Scientific and technical management.

More information on the five case studies:
At the core of WeCount are the five citizen science activities in the five cities in Europe. The table below presents an overview of the scope of these cases:
 

Where	Topic	Local issue to tackle	Which communities	Type of data	Contribution scientific gaps
Leuven (BE)	Traffic & Mobility Planning	Traffic management, rat running, run-up cycling routes and speed compliance	Citizen action groups in districts Kessel-Lo, Wilsele and Heverlee	Traffic counting and speed	Fine granularity traffic counting data to address local traffic planning.
Madrid (ES)	Car speed compliance and Air Quality	Emission reduction and speed compliance	Communities inside and around the Madrid Central area and around the A5 highway entrance.	Traffic counting and speed & NO2 diffusion	Fine granularity of traffic, speed compliance and air quality data for environmental research and policy.
Cardiff (UK)	Citizen Behaviour and Air Pollution	Congestion, air pollution, health conditions.	Driving children to school, commuting to work and the Cardiff Air Quality Management Areas.	Traffic counting in combination with AQ measurement	Collaborative science-policy for citizen, local government and public health bodies
Dublin (IE)	Liveability	reduced liveability due to high commercial traffic activity and reduced environmental quality (air quality, noise)	Citizen action groups in the district of Ringsend	Traffic counts, AQ, noise dB(A) with local meteorology; spatial data	Bottom up geospatial big data to address local environmental issues.
Ljubljana (SI)	Cyclists	network of cycle paths in the regional area, regulating a high quality bicycle infrastructure on short distances	Municipality of Ljubljana + neighboring municipalities (Domžale, Kamnik)	Bicycle counts	Low-cost bike counting sensor