Abstract
Increased use of bicycles and other human-powered cycles for transportation is one way to slow climate change while providing health and economic benefits. HF/E professionals can make valuable contributions to this effort through research on actual and perceived barriers to utility (transportation) cycling and on effective means to reduce these barriers.
Using HF/E methods such as design evaluation and data ana-lysis, HF/E professionals can do plenty to help broaden cycle use.
Motorized transportation represents a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, especially in high-income, industrially developed countries, and is expected to increase in developing nations as the number of cars grows. Cycling – the use of human-powered pedal-driven vehicles in general, including those with three and four wheels – can make valuable contributions to environmental integrity.
In the future, bicycling will become an increasingly important means of transportation throughout the world. As fossil fuel resources grow scarce and more expensive, and as the environmental consequences of fuel use become clearer, economic and other forces will reduce personal automotive travel. Bicycling, along with walking and other active transportation, will take on a larger share of daily travel over short distances and will be important for connecting people with mass transit for longer commutes and journeys.
Despite societal and personal benefits, mode share for cycling – the percentage of daily trips made with bicycles and their three- and four-wheeled cousins, as opposed to other means of transportation – remains extremely low in most areas. Although rates at or exceeding 20% are reported for some parts of Europe and some other locations (e.g., Havana, Cuba; Hanoi, Vietnam; Bamako, Mali; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; all higher than 50% for nonmotorized transport; Wright & Fulton, 2005), only 1% of all trips in the United States are made by cycle. Among commuters, the cycle mode share had risen from 0.4% in 1990 to 0.6% by 2009, showing progress but also much room for improvement (Alliance for Biking & Walking, 2012).
Policy makers could be satisfied that cycling will increase in the long run. But why wait for people to be forced into utility cycling (for transportation, as opposed to recreational cycling) by higher fuel costs, which may take many years?
Human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) professionals can contribute to several important aspects of efforts to increase cycle mode share. Barriers to utility cycling need to be understood and addressed. This short review will provide examples that focus on conditions in urban areas where low rates of cycling are found despite relatively high population density, rather than areas where cycling mode share is already high or where long distances (e.g., to work or to market) may make utility cycling less practical. Solution approaches will depend on regional factors, including weather, topography (e.g., hills), culture (e.g., greater acceptance of cycling by women), economics, and other matters. Rather than seeking a one-size-fits-all solution, HF/E professionals can play an important role in local and regional efforts, along with contributing research on more general issues.
Even a partial shift of trips from personal automobiles to bicycles can provide substantial benefits (e.g., Lindsay, Macmillan, & Woodward, 2011; Wright & Fulton, 2005). Cycling offers numerous other benefits such as reducing air pollution, noise pollution, and roadway congestion, as well as improving personal health and fitness. It can also promote social justice insofar as cycling is available to a much broader economic spectrum than personal automobile travel. Furthermore, cycling can reduce transportation costs, both publicly (infrastructure, such as roads and parking facilities) and individually (compared with owning and using a car; see, e.g., Götschi, 2011; Hintermann & Götschi, 2013; Ulrich, 2006).
Understanding
There are at least two distinct ways to learn about barriers to utility cycling. One is to ask people why they do not use a cycle more often for transportation (e.g., what makes it difficult, or how does it not satisfy their needs); the other is to try reducing or removing the barriers and then observing whether cycling rates increase. The first approach is relatively simple and inexpensive and has the face validity of assessing attitudes, but the frequent dissociation of attitudes from behavior renders this approach suggestive rather than definitive. The second approach can be far more difficult and costly, and complicated by confounding variables, but it provides more reliable evidence of intervention effectiveness.
Results from cycling attitude surveys seem to converge on several common themes. A telephone survey of households with cyclists in San Diego, California, found that the main reason given for not cycling to work was excessive distance (Jackson & Ruehr, 1998). Similarly, cyclists who rode to work for the first time on Bike to Work Day in the San Francisco (California) area were most likely to claim that it takes too much time (or is too far) to cycle to work more frequently. Safety concerns were cited as a barrier to utility cycling by only a small portion of cyclists. On the other hand, not surprisingly, cyclists who sign up for the cycle safety classes offered for free by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition cite general safety concerns, along with a lack of safe places to ride, as the primary barriers to utility cycling (40% of respondents in 2012).
Concerns about both distance and safety might be met at least partially by changes in infrastructure. Time and distance problems can be addressed by making it easier to combine cycling with public transit. One approach is to make it easy to bring bikes along, and another is to provide secure and convenient bike parking at transit stations, possibly in combination with bike-share programs to help transit commuters reach their destinations (DeMaio, 2009). Safety can be enhanced by a variety of roadway changes, such as bike lanes and bike paths. Improved cycling facilities were generally favored by a large portion of survey respondents (e.g., Royal & Miller-Steiger, 2008), although changes intended to improve safety may have little effect or may even be associated with increased accident rates.
Despite the intuitive appeal of infrastructure changes to make utility cycling both easier and safer, reported behavior is not necessarily correlated with the availability of such improvements. For example, a study of cyclists in Maryland and the Netherlands found that reported rates of cycling to work were primarily associated with respondents’ age and the distance to work; the presence of bike paths and amenities, such as showers and lockers, was much less predictive (Shahan, 2007). Similarly, a phone survey in Portland, Oregon, found no relation between reported level of cycling and proximity to bike lanes (Dill & Voros, 2007).
Some studies have had more positive outcomes. For example, a survey of six small U.S. cities showed that reported cycling frequency was related both to perceived safety of the cycling environment and the extent of local bike lanes (Xing & Handy, 2010). A review of more than 100 studies to date (Pucher, Dill, & Handy, 2010) showed that infrastructure improvements are generally (although not universally) favored by cyclists and are associated with higher rates of reported and observed cycling. Nevertheless, a need remains for more well-designed evaluations with objective outcome measures.
Given the importance of safety concerns for some cyclists and transportation planners, it is useful to investigate factors that contribute to cycling injuries in order to prioritize intervention strategies. Analyses of accident data for injuries associated with cycling have shown that a major portion of the risk is under the control of the rider through proper cycle maintenance, adherence to safe riding behavior, and avoidance of risky practices (Ayres, Kost, Schmidt, Werner, & Young, 1998). It follows that both actual and perceived risk might be reduced through appropriate education. Safety classes, such as those certified by the League of American Bicyclists, are found to increase perceived safety and confidence (including in surveys of classes provided by the author’s organization, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition).
There is some evidence for reduced accident rates following such voluntary classes, as well as for changes in behavior following mandatory safety classes in schools (e.g., Ayres, 2006), but more extensive evaluations are needed, especially in light of the disappointing results of mandatory training for automobile drivers (Ayres, Gross, & McCarthy, 1993) and for bicycle safety classes in school (in an Australian study; Carlin, Taylor, & Nolan, 1998).
The impact of cycle safety classes remains limited, however, by small total enrollments. For example, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition has been fortunate to receive public funding to promote and run free bike safety classes, but the numbers of course participants remain very small compared with the total cycling community. It may be more effective to work with captive audiences, especially for young cyclists in schools, as discussed earlier, perhaps in combination with efforts to increase active transportation, such as walking or biking to school (Ayres, 2010).
Another means of increasing safety class participation, perhaps more controversially, is through ticket diversion programs. The East Bay Bicycle Coalition, along with a growing number of others, has arranged for cyclists who receive traffic citations while riding to reduce their fines by attending a cycle safety class. Enormous efforts and expenditures have been made for decades to provide automotive driver training in high schools; perhaps some corresponding effort should be made to ensure that students also understand safe cycling practices and skills, especially given the lack of formal testing and licensing of cyclists.
Future Directions
In the interest of a better world – not just in response to global warming but in pursuit of a host of societal and personal benefits – HF/E professionals can contribute by promoting cycling, especially as a replacement for trips that otherwise would be made in personal motor vehicles. There is work to be done to mitigate the risks associated with traveling at speeds higher than those of pedestrians with little added protection and to make cycling an effective means of utility transportation in effective combination with mass transit.
Areas in which technical skills of HF/E professionals can be especially helpful include the following:
Analysis of injury data to prioritize safety-related interventions, including for specific infrastructure changes and specific educational efforts. This work might include site-specific analyses to help cyclists select routes that will make travel safer and more enjoyable (e.g., Yiannakoulias, Bennet, & Scott, 2011), taking into account the effects of roadway and traffic factors.
Evaluation of the effectiveness of various interventions, including infrastructure, education, and enforcement efforts (and even the mechanical properties of bicycles, such as to make them simpler; Brown, 2008). Dependent variables should include objective outcomes (e.g., mode share and injury rates) along with self-report and attitude measures, providing the basis for weighing costs and benefits.
Consideration of how alternative product designs can meet the needs of users, such as in the variety of cargo bikes that are available to support shopping and delivery, or how recumbent tricycles can reduce some cycling barriers associated with aging, such as back or balance problems. More generally, HF/E professionals can study the transportation needs of various segments of the population and try to determine which of those needs might be addressed by some combination of cycling and public transit.
Careful review of successful multi-intervention case studies, in which large increases in cycling are associated with major infrastructure and public promotion campaigns (e.g., Pucher, Dill, & Handy, 2010). By their nature, the effects of individual components of these efforts cannot be teased out, but they provide a basis for optimism and a hint that no single component can match the combined effects of a concerted and organized package of changes.
Development and testing of effective communication tools that could help people understand and weigh the various costs and benefits associated with cycling, such as comparison of health risks (e.g., injury, breathing polluted air in traffic) with health benefits (e.g., fitness, longevity).
This is not a typical call for further research, although many issues remain. Rather, this is a call to action, in the hope that those of us who are HF/E professionals can add our weight to a broad societal shift. As a first step, we can set an example by incorporating utility cycling into our own lives – riding to work, meetings, and inspections, and letting our colleagues, students, and others know why.