Cycling & Urban Commuting: Results of Behavioural Mode and Route Choice Models

The research reported here was undertaken as part of an Economic and Social Research Council Project (R000237103) entitled Cycling and Urban Mode Choice. The scope of the study is entirely commuting within an urban context. The objectives of the study were:

• to better understand the interactions between car, bus, cycle and walk in an urban context and to explain observed variations in cycle trip rates across towns.

• to be able to forecast the effect of a range of improvements to cycling facilities on mode choice

• to use the estimated models to evaluate some actual schemes

• to provide end users (eg consultants, local authorities, cycling organisations) with a tool to determine the effect of policy measures. In particular, to create models which will enhance the performance of strategic, integrated transport studies. The objectives of this paper are:

• to describe the methodology that was used to examine cycling within an urban mode choice context

• to outline the collection of data required to estimate behavioural models

• to report the results of the estimated mode and route choice models

• to provide illustrations of how the model can be used to appraise improvements to cycle facilities and cycling conditions.

The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 2 gives a brief overview of the policy context of work on cycling in the UK and previous work in the area. Section 3 describes the methodology used to collect the Revealed Preference (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) data necessary for the model. Section 4 describes the data that was collected. Section 5 gives details of the development of the model and some empirical results from the model that was developed. Section 6 illustrates how the model could be used to appraise improvements in cycle facilities and cycling conditions. Section 7 draws some conclusions from the work.