2 Related work
The tracking of moving objects requires battery power, and therefore
this has been largely implemented on those moving objects that
already have a battery – typically vehicles with motors such as
cars, lorries, boats or trains. Conventional bicycles are an example
of a moving object without battery, where tracking is more
challenging, as devices cannot feed off an existing power source.
Therefore many ways of tracking bike use have focused on devices
used by the rider (e.g. their mobile phone) or on attaching devices
with a long battery life to bikes [e.g. global positioning system
(GPS) trackers]. Whilst valuable in the absence of other solutions,
both strategies have limitations, since they require compromise in
terms of reliability and/or quality of data – the former because it
relies on people taking their phone on each trip made (with the
relevant application running), the latter because it relies on an extra
device being charged, switched on and attached to the bike (plus,
choosing a setting that extends the device’s battery life results in
less data being recorded). E-bikes have an on-board battery that
can be connected to a monitoring system that tracks the bike
(rather than the rider via their phone) while not compromising data
quality for battery life (as is often the case in cycling research).
Several projects demonstrate methods for gathering sensor data
from cyclists. Dill and Gliebe [6] required cyclists to switch on a