Abstract
What are the barriers commuters encounter in their practice of cycling? To which elements and scales do they refer? How can they be overcome? As in the section on motivations, this chapter begins with a quantitative overview. The main barriers are then explored in depth using interviews and respondents’ comments. They are addressed in terms of the scale at which they operate: that of the individual, their household or, more generally, the context in which cycling takes place.
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Notes
- 1.
In this sample, barriers and motivations are not correlated. The most explanatory factor regarding barriers is the frequency of use of bicycle commuting before the bike to work campaign. The higher the frequency, the lower the importance of barriers.
- 2.
As for the motivations, a principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out. It identified three axes—logistical constraints, safety and comfort—explaining 63% of the total variance. The ‘bad weather’ variable is excluded from the model because it makes only a small contribution to the explanatory axes (which is due to the fact that its influence is linked to both comfort and safety). Nevertheless, given its importance, we will comment on this aspect based on the qualitative material.
- 3.
Barriers are similar for both conventional cyclists an e-bikers (linear regression; R2 = 0.990). Differences are smaller than 1 point for seven items, including criteria for which the e-bike could have an advantage as it lessens the required effort (carrying goods, issues of sweating and clothing, physical effort due to the topography or distance, exposure to air pollution). A small difference is found in terms of risk of theft (e-bikes are more expensive, but this means that their owner is more likely to find a storage solution before purchase) and image. E-bike users are a little bit more sensitive to weather conditions (54.2% vs. 52.3%), activities before/after work (41.0% vs. 39.1%) and accompanying children (22.6% vs. 20.9%), which may be explained by their longer commute and family situation. The same can be said for safety issues, which shows the biggest difference, with 4.2 points between the two groups: as e-bike users commute further and are more likely to live in suburban and rural areas, they are more likely to have to cohabit with motorised traffic at a high speed.
References
M. Flamm, Comprendre le choix modal: les déterminants des pratiques modales et des représentations individuelles des moyens de transport (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, 2004)
E. Heinen, B. van Wee, K. Maat, Commuting by bicycle: an overview of the literature. Transp. Rev. 30(1), 59–96 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1080/01441640903187001
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Rérat, P. (2021). Barriers. In: Cycling to Work. SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62256-5_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62256-5_9
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