Citation

Raffler C, Brezina T, Emberger G. Transp. Res. A Policy Pract. 2019; 121: 360-373.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.tra.2019.01.019

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

"The bicycle share has risen to a level of 7%" - This newsletter headline is just one example that highlights the growing interest of current Austrian transport-policy in fostering bicycle traffic. But where is it most expedient to invest into new infrastructure or initiatives? This work seeks to shed light on the question and therefore presents a new supporting methodology for planners and decision-makers that builds upon body-energy consumption and relies on Austrian census commuter data. The main challenges and scientific contributions lie in the proposal of a new raster-based GIS model to calculate the energetic demand between and inside of Austrian municipalities, overcoming limitations of previous approaches. A regression analysis is conducted in order to check for a statistical relationship between cycle-share and body energy expenditure. This further allows the calculation of a potential value for investments as the deviation between the energetically predicted cycle-share and the present cycling level. Topography and routing distance are reported to explain between 53 and 63 percent of intra- and interzonal bicycle shares. It is therefore concluded that body energy consumption has a major impact on cycling. The work ends with the discussion of results and provides a perspective on the usage of this evidence-based methodology in national and international planning and research. Additionally, a discussion of the results in the context of the simultaneously developed British Propensity to Cycle Tool is provided.

Language: en

Keywords

Cost-path analysis; Cycling commuters; Energy expenditure; GIS; National census data