Why we built it

Public transport is often measured in money spent and services run. That does not tell a resident whether they can reach work, school, shopping or friends, nor does it let a planner compare places with different distances and settlement patterns.

The Atlas therefore uses one comparable measure of how geography and mobility work together, with the same method for all 98 municipalities and down to street level.

Denmark is discussing regional reform and the 2025 recommendations from the Expert Committee on Public Mobility. Both raise the same question: what should public transport do, and who should own and fund it? The question has become more immediate with a new ministry that brings transport, cities and rural areas together. The first funding to strengthen rural public transport followed shortly after.

The grade gives equal weight to two things: how well public transport supports everyday life, and how necessary it is to own a car to make that life work.

We use Rejseplanen timetables, the OpenStreetMap road network, Statistics Denmark definitions and official municipality and parish boundaries. Car dependence is a lens, not the basis for the grade. The full calculation is open on the method page.

The Danish Mobility Atlas is for people making decisions, investments or arguments about mobility in Denmark: municipalities, regions, public transport authorities, politicians, property developers and civil society organisations. It gives them geography and data instead of a hunch.

Much of what has to be decided now is about where something goes. A shelter, a mobility hub for demand-responsive transport, a shared bike. It only works in the right place, and that is harder to determine than it sounds. The Atlas shows where a car is genuinely necessary, street by street. It does not say what should go there, whether anyone will use it, or how you later show that it changed anything. That is the work we do with public transport authorities, regions and municipalities.

This is a first version. The method is our judgement, not an answer key. We will change it when the evidence says we should.

The Danish Mobility Atlas is made by Beta Mobility. Read the method and sources.