London Cycle Hire Tails

Whilst this animation, produced by Jo Wood at City University, is a really nice representation of  the five million Barclays Cycle Hire journeys made in 2010/11 in central London, its main purpose is to show the effect of changing the length of the ‘trail’ left by each journey (starts to increase from 15 seconds into the animation). By changing the prominence given to more common journeys (from 45 seconds onwards), structure emerges from the apparent chaos of journeys. Three major systems become apparent (from 1 minute onwards) – Hyde park to the west, commuting to/from King’s Cross St Pancras to the north and Waterloo to/from the City to the east.