To increase the amount of bicycling as a mode of transport, many countries are developing placed based bicycling plans and strategies. However, this approach necessitates considering a fine-scale mapping of bicycling patterns and a detailed description of urban spaces. The rise of new data and technologies offers much promise to planners and researchers to access diverse and richer sources of information to optimise the bicycling network design. This review aims to comprehensively examine the role of data and technology in bicycling planning, historical changes in using data-driven approaches, and current domains in the existing body of research in bicycling planning from 1990 to 2021. For this, a systematic literature review has been conducted according to PRISMA framework. A total number of 1022 studies was analysed and synthesised with the VOS Viewer and CiteSpace platforms. Upon completing the review, we extracted the most-used datasets, tools, and methodologies. The results of the systematic review reveal three evolutionary phases in using data-driven approaches from 1990 to 1999, 2000 to 2009, and 2010 to 2021. In addition, we identified six knowledge domains in using data-driven approaches in bicycling planning that is (i) smart city, (ii) infrastructure, (iii) built environment, (iv) decision making, (v) people, and (vi) safety.

In recent times, cities have increasingly promoted bicycling as a mode of transport as part of their strategy to develop a more sustainable transportation system. Australia is one of the countries that seeks to promote bicycling in a significant manner. There are two primary barriers faced in this effort. The first is the organizational complexity of planning and of implementing cycling-related projects, which can span across different agencies in government at various levels, from federal to local. Second is the lack of a clear framework for effectively planning a bicycling network using multiple data and tools available to these agencies within a limited budget. This study investigates the use of a geo-design-based, collaborative, and data-driven framework for planning bicycling networks, which brings various stakeholders, such as transport planners, urban designers, and academics, into the planning practice, thus overcoming the mentioned barriers. Geo-design is an environmental design framework for complex problems involving the collaboration of different teams and stakeholders, supported by digital computing and communication technologies. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study in the literature applying the geo-design approach for bicycling planning. Therefore, this study aims to develop and test a geo-design framework for planning bicycling networks to examine possible design scenarios and facilitate decision-making processes. In this regard, this study developed a geo-design framework for planning for bicycling using various bicycling-related datasets and digital tools, such as the Agent-Based Model. Then, it applied the framework to design a real-world bicycle network through a geo-design workshop while examining the usefulness and effectiveness of the developed procedures and tools. Policymakers attended the geo-design workshop from the local government authority of the case study area, Penrith, and post-graduate level urban planning students from UNSW. Due to COVID-19-related restrictions, the workshop was held in a hybrid format, with half of the participants joining online. The results of this study revealed that by facilitating collaboration and applying data-driven approaches, the proposed geo-design bicycling framework could improve the process of planning for bicycling infrastructure. This study also enabled the research team to understand the strengths and limitations of the developed framework and associated tools, which will help to optimize them for other planning practices in the future.