Background on the National Cycle Network and Sustrans

The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the United Kingdom’s network of signed cycling and pedestrian paths, created and maintained by the nonprofit Sustrans.

The NCN officially came to be in 1995, when Sustrans won a National Lottery grant of £42.5 million to establish a nationwide collective of pathways for pedestrian and cycling use.

As of 2025, the NCN encompasses 12,786 miles of on- and off-road paths across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. While Sustrans only directly owns about 2% of NCN trails, Sustrans serves as its custodian, working directly with landowners to maintain, develop, and promote their paths.

Thoughtful design principles steer the governance of the NCN. Work is continuously being done to improve the pedestrian experience—adding accessibility features, improving signage, and converting more of the network to traffic-free (car-free) pathways are paramount to Sustrans’ stewardship.

From an idea to reality

Jim Gayes, imagery extraordinaire

Jim Gayes, of Chester, England has been capturing street-level imagery since 2017. He started with a Google Pixel phone, creating photospheres of the area near his parents’ home in Wales to “market” the area. He quickly upgraded to a more advanced setup, diving deep into the world of 360 cameras. In time, Jim built a portfolio collecting street-level imagery—to date, he’s captured imagery in eight different countries for a number of projects!

How Jim got on Sustrans' radar

The story with Sustrans begins in 2019, when Jim noticed that a disabled community member was struggling to access one of the NCN trails. The trail had an entry gate that made it difficult for those using assistive mobility devices to get by.

Looking to improve the situation for his neighbor, Jim captured 360° imagery of the trail and brought it to his local Sustrans representative. Using the imagery as a guide, the Sustrans team was able to validate and address the accessibility issue.

This experience got Jim thinking—did the NCN have authoritative imagery of its network? Were there other undocumented issues that imagery would uncover? Jim knew the value of street-level imagery and pitched an idea to Sustrans: if they’d have him, Jim would be more than willing to capture the NCN network for them.

Sealing the deal

In 2021, Jim got his opportunity. Neill Malone, Sr. Network Development Manager for Scotland at Sustrans, reached out to Jim, offering a pilot project to capture imagery of a new traffic-free NCN route from Glasgow to Balloch. The pilot was a smashing success.

Thrilled with the outcome of the pilot effort, Neill gave Jim the nod of approval—it was time to capture all of Scotland’s traffic-free trail network.

The logistics of an imagery capture expedition

The Scotland project would be no easy feat. Jim was tasked with documenting Scotland’s 920 miles of traffic-free trails for Sustrans, including the entry/exit link paths that connected said trails to roadways. In total, the split came out to 697 miles of main routes and 223 miles of link paths.

The goal was to make the effort as efficient as possible. With a target start date of June 2023, Jim had lots of prep work to do. Fortunately, his partner Sue was happy to accompany him and help with the project.

After much deliberation, they came to the following conclusions:

1. E-bikes were a must. Given the scale of the project, e-bikes were necessary to ensure they could sustain six to seven high mileage days in a row.
2. They needed a camper van. A camper van would be the most affordable and efficient way to travel Scotland and transport their bikes.
3. They’d split the task into two main sessions. Given the gloomy, rainy weather in Scotland’s colder months, It made sense to divide the bulk of the effort between road trips in the warmer months of 2023 and 2024. Of course, there would need to be a few one-off capture sessions too.
4. Do loops whenever possible. Since Jim was capturing 360 imagery, there was no need to traverse a path in both directions. Extensive route planning was needed to ensure they were covering as much ground as they could each day. Occasionally, this meant catching a train out or back to their camper van!

And so, with the above in mind, Sue took on the challenge of booking campsites in close proximity to NCN trails. Campsites had to have electric hook up as Jim had nine batteries that needed charging each day. Availability at sites often dictated the order in which they traversed the NCN trails. Interestingly enough, this endeavor marked the first time Jim had ever been camping.

Sue played a major support role in the project beyond campsite booking. She became the weather monitor, ending up with five different weather apps she consulted regularly (and they were all often wrong!). She also supported with most of the day to day chores of food shopping, cooking, laundry and keeping the camper tidy. She kept track of the finances, account management, and insurance. Sue did a good share of the driving too.

While Jim and Sue planned extensively, sometimes things don’t always go to plan. Jim noted a few hiccups along the way: their camper van broke down and had to be replaced, Sue's bike broke mid-capture session, and they were stifled by a LOT of poor weather. Their credit card even got scammed too.

Nonetheless, Jim stressed to “go out when the weather’s good for as long as you can, and just get it done.”

Jim’s capture setup

Jim used the Labpano Pilot One 360 camera paired with an Ardusimple u-blox ZED-F9R GNSS RTK unit for ultra-precise positioning. He kept spare batteries with him to ensure he could capture up to 10 hours of footage a day.

The Labpano camera was mounted above his bike helmet via a bespoke homemade backpack assembly; the u-blox GPS device was stored at the back of his e-bike.

Using an external GPS unit was crucial, as several of the NCN paths were under heavy tree canopy which can often disrupt weaker GPS devices. In the most extreme case, a few NCN paths even ran through tunnels. The powerful Ardusimple u-blox device was able to handle such cases with stunning results.

To ensure Jim covered all of the NCN trails, Ralph Hughes, GIS Manager at Sustrans, created an ArcGIS Field Maps project to track Jim’s progress.

16 weeks on the road, 2,538 miles cycled, and 4.8+ TB of data later, Jim and Sue’s journey came to a close in summer 2024. The Scotland section of the traffic-free NCN was now officially mapped in full.

How Sustrans uses Mapillary imagery

Jim continuously uploaded his imagery to Mapillary throughout the exercise, even using Starlink for the second half of the project. Uploaded imagery takes under 48 hours to go live on Mapillary, which meant that Neill’s team could get to work on analyzing trail conditions right away.

Each year several parts of the NCN need updating in some way—whether it be trail widening or new accessibility features. Neill’s team uses Mapillary imagery to identify areas which need such improvements.

Priority concerns for Sustrans at the moment are changing routes from on-road to traffic-free, reducing gradients to less than 5%, and removing barriers to make routes accessible and safe for all users. Sustrans has been removing anywhere from 200-400 barriers per year; they’re now doing this with the help of Mapillary imagery.

Mapillary is primarily used as a tool for visual auditing at Sustrans. Internally, Mapillary imagery is used to streamline decision making around trail modifications–instead of arranging for field visits, which are often time-consuming due to the remote nature of certain trails, a trail conditions audit can be done virtually from a desktop.

Furthermore, Mapillary imagery eases communication with contractors and volunteers. It’s much easier for a team lead at Sustrans to send a link to a Mapillary image versus attempting to convey a particular location in writing.

Sustrans uses the Mapillary ArcGIS Pro add-in to view trail imagery alongside other spatial data. Ralph’s team has also added Mapillary image links as attributes in several of the point datasets his group maintains. These are exposed on internal and external web maps, allowing viewers to quickly get a glimpse of a trail feature in the real world.

What’s next?

On the Sustrans side of things, there’s lots to be done now that they’ve got the Scotland imagery archive.

Ralph’s team is currently exploring ways to extract NCN-specific assets from imagery using machine learning. This initiative would make street-level imagery even more critical to Sustran’s current workflows–a custom asset detection model will allow them to swiftly identify areas where signage gaps, accessibility issues, etc. exist.

Neill’s team will continue to work directly with landowners, contractors, and volunteers to ensure that the Scotland NCN footprint is in good shape. The 360 imagery that Jim collected is being used on the regular for day-to-day operations.

Funding will determine if Sustrans can replicate the Scotland imagery effort in Wales, England, and Northern Ireland.

As for Jim, he’s enjoyed getting to relax post-campaign. He doesn’t have any projects comparable in size on the horizon, but he’s got many local spots (and more beyond!) on his agenda to capture.

When asked if he’d do another large capture project for Sustrans, it was an easy yes for Jim. “It didn’t feel like work,” he said. “The camper van is sitting ready to head off to the next adventure!”

Bonus: Jim’s favorite scenes and other pictures

Jim and Sue documented their journeys well beyond 360 imagery. It was such a joy to hear Jim’s favorite spots, stories from their time in the field, and learn more about the depth of natural beauty in Scotland. Check out more pictures from the journey below.

No shortage of scenery

Sustrans signage

Art is everywhere

Water crossings galore

Closing

Many thanks to Jim Gayes, Neill Malone, and Ralph Hughes for making this blog post possible. Mapillary success stories like these are extra special; I'm honored to bring this one to life.

/Marcie

Got a story to tell? Send it to hello@mapillary.com for a chance to be featured in a future blog!