Greater Manchester Cycle Routes Including On-Road and Off-Road Paths

Cycle routes in Greater Manchester include on-road, off-road, canal towpaths, and National Cycle Network routes. The data is provided by GM local authorities and collated by Transport for Greater Manchester, available in MapInfo .tab, Google .kmz, and ESRI .shp formats. The source notes the data cannot be guaranteed to be fully correct.

Use Cases

• Map on-road and off-road cycle routes for urban mobility planning and infrastructure analysis.
• Analyze the network of canal towpaths for recreational route planning and connectivity studies.
• Integrate National Cycle Network routes with local data for regional active travel strategy development.
• Use the geographic data in .shp format for spatial analysis of cycling corridor coverage.

Strengths

• Data includes multiple route types: on-road, off-road, canal towpaths, and National Cycle Network routes.
• Available in three standard geospatial formats: MapInfo .tab, Google .kmz, and ESRI .shp.
• Provided and collated by the official regional transport authority, Transport for Greater Manchester.
• Dataset was last updated in March 2026, indicating recent maintenance.

Limitations

• The data provider explicitly states it 'cannot be guaranteed to be fully correct', indicating potential inaccuracies.
• No row count, column details, or sample data are provided, limiting assessment of dataset scale and structure.
• The description lacks specific metrics like total route length, number of segments, or temporal coverage details.

Provenance

Source

Transport for Greater Manchester, using data from GM local authorities and containing OS data © Crown copyright.

Collection Method

Collated from a number of different sources by Transport for Greater Manchester.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-03-13.

Geography

Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.