How do electric cargo bikes fit with real life? A social practice analysis in the United Kingdom

Cycling an e-cargo bike offers key advantages of both car and bike use, and its potential to substitute many car trips offers energy demand reduction benefits. Fulfilling this potential depends on its being routinised in households' lives as a mobility practice. This paper applies social practice theory to interview data from 49 household trials of e-cargo bike use in suburbs of three cities in the United Kingdom to explore what domestic e-cargo biking is as a social practice, and whether it can substitute car use. Households likely to use e-cargo biking to replace car use were purposely sampled to receive e-cargo bikes for free trials. The paper frames its analysis within a specific theoretical understanding of ‘mobility practices’ which builds on key texts to identify such practices' complex and unique nature and their potential to substitute car trips. This is based on three methods of attracting (or in practice language, ‘recruiting’) car drivers away from driving: we explore what e-cargo biking has in common with driving; how it can tie together the other activities or social practices of life; and how activities of strong emotional importance can be combined with it. We suggest that domestic e-cargo biking is indeed a distinct social practice with elements shared with both car use and cycling, with particular importance to families with young children. We develop recommendations for policy makers to target such groups with e-cargo bikes ownership and supportive measures to enable multi-modal lifestyles that reduce the need to use or own a car.