Open Data Insight of the Day

In December 2025, the Canton of Basel-Stadt continued its efforts to monitor motorized traffic, cycling, and pedestrian flows to gain insights into how people move through the city. This data collection is crucial for evidence-based transport planning, improving road safety, assessing environmental impacts, and evaluating the effectiveness of mobility policies. During this month, a total of 16,957,072 vehicles were recorded across 48 motorized traffic stations, 27 bicycle stations, and 25 pedestrian stations.

Motorized traffic is categorized by street type, with 48 stations dedicated to capturing this data. The station with the highest motorized traffic was A3-A35, Grenze CH-F, recording 1,022,326 vehicles. Figure 1 provides a map of all active stations in December 2025, while Figure 2 illustrates the average weekday traffic at the Heuwage station, highlighting commuter flows. Detailed results for all active motorized traffic counting stations in December 2025 are available in Table 1 and Table 2, which also compare the data with average monthly values over the past year and the same month from the previous year.

For pedestrians and bicycles, there are 25 and 27 counting stations, respectively. The pedestrian station with the most traffic was located at Gerbergasse, a popular shopping street, as shown in Figure 3. This figure highlights the traffic differences between weekends and weekdays, with significantly higher traffic on weekends from noon to 4 pm. Similarly, Figure 4 shows a bicycle traffic station on Wettsteinbrücke, where the impact of bike commuters is evident on weekdays.

Table 2 compares traffic data from December 2025 with the same month in the previous year, considering only stations active in both years. There was a 4.49% increase in bicycle traffic, a 1.18% increase in motorized traffic, and a 3.29% increase in pedestrian traffic. The number of stations with increased traffic was 25 for bicycles, 30 for motorized traffic, and 18 for pedestrians. Compared to the average of the last 12 months, December 2025 showed no significant differences, which aligns with expectations for lower bicycle traffic in winter months.

For those interested in exploring Basel's traffic data further, the traffic counting dashboard provides comprehensive insights and visualizations.