Every two years the equip Copenhagenize Design Co. makes a raking with the top 20 bicycle friendly cities. Each city is given a score according to 14 parameters which try to collect the most important issues regarding bikes and cities in an unbiased way. This index has a lot of prestige. The parameters are:
- Advocacy
- Bicycle culture
- Bicycle facilities
- Bicycle infrastructure
- Bike share programme
- Gender split
- Modal share for bicycles
- Modal share increase since 2006
- Perception of safety
- Politics
- Social acceptance
- Urban planning
- Traffic calming
- Cargo bikes and logistics
The fact of using these parameters rather than asking individuals allows avoiding personal perceptions which prevents excessive positive or negative emotions. If that would happen, it would discredit the index in turns.
Although most of the cities in the ranking are European ones, the authors also consider cities from all the continents. In the 2017 edition, 136 cities in total were examine.