Miles with smiles: the role of e-cargo bikes in facilitating new personal and family-oriented travel and relevant beyond-utility motivations

E-cargo bikes (ECBs) can play a crucial role in the transition to sustainable transport. Existing research primarily focuses on ECBs in sharing schemes and urban delivery, with limited attention to domestic use. Most studies emphasize mode substitution, often overlooking motivations unique to ECBs and beyond-utility travel motivations. Critically, little is known about ECBs’ role in generating new travel demand. This study explores how ECBs generate new trips, focusing on individual and household motivations that extend beyond purely utilitarian purposes. Trials were conducted with 49 households across three cities: Leeds, Oxford, and Brighton. A mixed-methods approach was employed, emphasizing qualitative data from interviews and supplemented with quantitative insights from travel diaries.

Findings indicate that ECBs enhanced accessibility, leading to increased travel distance and frequency, and enabling travelers to ‘do more.’ Their capacity to transport children and bulky items unlocked induced and latent demand, facilitating trips that otherwise would not have occurred. Beyond utility, ECBs fostered new solo and family travel shaped by a range of intrinsic motivations. They promoted well-being, offered therapeutic outdoor experiences, disrupted daily routines, and supported personal growth, freedom, and autonomy. Caregivers particularly valued ECBs for the control, spontaneity, and flexibility they provided in managing complex household schedules. Parents’ and children’s enjoyment, curiosity, and sense of adventure encouraged additional travel, transforming routine journeys into playful and memorable family experiences. New ECB travel enhanced family bonding, strengthened intra-household cohesion, and increased children’s willingness to participate in activities that might otherwise have been resisted. Households used ECBs to cultivate sustainable travel identities, model pro-environmental behaviors, and instill active mobility norms in children.

The paper reframes induced demand and advances research on travel behavior and motivations. It provides valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and societies, positioning ECBs as a distinct mode in the transition to sustainable mobility.