SPAN (Spending Priorities for Active Networks) ranks possible new cycling links in Auckland and puts them in a build order for a goal and a budget. It shows what each link would add, what it costs, and how firm the estimate is.

Build order shows which links to fund first. Value for money compares their costs and effects. Connected journeys checks which upgrades need to be built together to complete a route; it currently covers a North Shore sample only.

For bike parking, STAND suggests sites for secure bike docks on the University of Auckland's campuses.

Reading the map

• Green numbered lines are the build order: the links that fit in the budget, numbered in the order to build them.
• Orange is the link you have selected. Click a line or a list row to see its details.
• Blue squares show where the trips behind the chosen goal start. Darker means more.
• Layers adds existing low-stress streets and paths where available, other candidates, Auckland Transport's plans, cycle counters and crashes. A selected link shows its connection points. Network groups are sets of proposals joined by shared junctions or existing low-stress areas.

Cycle counters: July 2026. Cycle crashes: 2016–2025. These layers give context. They do not show the effect of a proposed upgrade.

Goals

Access gain counts people helped, scaled by how much easier their ride gets: 100 people whose ride becomes 10% easier count as 10.

Scenarios

• Census baseline: cycling to work on the modelled trips, from the 2023 Census. It counts about 820 cycle commuters against about 8,180 in the Census, because small suppressed counts are taken as zero and some trips are not modelled.
• Government target, Go Dutch and E-bikes: scenarios from England's Propensity to Cycle Tool, applied to Auckland trips by distance and hilliness.
• 8% of commutes: what 8% of Auckland commuters cycling would look like. A test case, not an Auckland Transport target.

How it is built

• Candidate links upgrade connected stretches of streets that are stressful to ride today. Each is costed as a protected cycleway. How each one connects to existing low-stress areas is checked separately, using source junctions.
• Trips to work come from the 2023 Census. School, everyday and station trips link homes to school rolls, OpenStreetMap destinations and the Auckland Transport timetable. Each trip keeps up to five plausible routes, rated for traffic stress and hills.
• A link's value is the extra cycling the model expects once its streets are low-stress. The build order re-runs the model at each step with the earlier links in place, so shared routes are not counted twice.
• Whole-life cost adds 40 years of maintenance and renewal to the build cost, discounted.
• For the 8% scenario, 1,000 test runs vary costs, how many people respond, a route-choice factor and the discount rate. Each run applies the same factors to every link, so the runs give a range for each benefit–cost ratio but do not test which links rank first.

Limits

• SPAN is a screening tool, not an investment business case. Design, a safety audit, consultation and project costings come later.
• Riders are modelled, not counted. Cycle counters are shown as a rough check only.
• Trips keep to their plausible routes; a check that reroutes the whole network is still to come.
• Crash counts are not adjusted for how much cycling happens in each place.

Data and credits

Light and Streets use OpenFreeMap tiles and OpenStreetMap data. Plain shows no background map and is used for reproducible captures.

Method · Code · Better Places Lab

SPAN was released as the Auckland Cycling Investment Workbench up to version 1.0.