ABSTRACT

International comparisons of cycling behaviour have typically been limited to high-income countries and often limited to the prevalence of cycling, with lack of discussions on demographic and trip characteristics. We used a combination of city, regional, and national travel surveys from 17 countries across the six continents, ranging from years 2009 through 2019. We present a descriptive analysis of cycling behaviour including level of cycling, trip purpose and distance, and user demographics, at the city-level for 35 major cities (>1 million population) and in urbanised areas nationwide for 11 countries. The Netherlands, Japan and Germany are among the highest cycling countries and their cities among the highest cycling cities. In cities and countries with high cycling levels, cycling rates tend to be more equal between work and non-work trips, whereas in geographies with low cycling levels, cycling to work is higher than cycling for other trips. In terms of cycling distance, patterns in high- and low-cycling geographies are more similar. We found a strong positive association between the level of cycling and women’s representation among cyclists. In almost all geographies with cycling mode share greater than 7% women made as many cycle trips as men, and sometimes even greater. The share of cycling trips by women is much lower in geographies with cycling mode shares less than 7%. Among the geographies with higher levels of cycling, children (<16 years) are often overrepresented. Older adults (>60 years) remain underrepresented in all geographies but have relatively better representation where levels of cycling are high. In low-cycling settings, females are underrepresented across all the age groups, and more so when older than 16 years. With increasing level of cycling, representation of females improves across all the age groups, and most significantly among children and older adults. Clustering the cities and countries into homogeneous cycling typologies reveals that high cycling levels always coincide with high representation of females and good representations of all age groups. In low-cycling settings, it is the reverse. We recommend that evaluations of cycling policies include usage by gender and age groups as benchmarks in addition to overall use. To achieve representation across different age and gender groups, making neighbourhoods cycling friendly and developing safer routes to school, should be equally high on the agenda as cycling corridors that often cater to commuting traffic.

摘要

自行车行为的国际比较通常仅限于高收入国家，并且通常仅限于自行车的流行，缺乏对人口和旅行特征的讨论。我们使用了 2009 年至 2019 年间来自六大洲 17 个国家的城市、地区和国家旅行调查的组合。我们对骑行行为进行了描述性分析，包括骑行水平、旅行目的和距离以及用户人口统计数据，在 35 个主要城市（超过 100 万人口）的城市一级和 11 个国家的全国城市化地区。荷兰、日本和德国是自行车运动最高的国家之一，它们的城市也是自行车运动最高的城市之一。在骑车率高的城市和国家，工作和非工作旅行的骑车率往往更加平等，而在骑车率低的地区，骑车上班比骑车去其他地方要高。就骑行距离而言，高骑行和低骑行地区的模式更为相似。我们发现骑自行车的水平与骑自行车者中女性的代表性之间存在很强的正相关关系。在几乎所有使用自行车模式的地区，超过 7% 的女性骑行次数与男性一样多，有时甚至更多。在骑行模式份额低于 7% 的地区，女性骑行出行的份额要低得多。在自行车运动水平较高的地区中，儿童（<16 岁）的比例通常过高。老年人（>60 岁）在所有地区的代表性仍然不足，但在自行车运动水平较高的地方具有相对较好的代表性。在低循环设置中，女性在所有年龄组中的代表性不足，16 岁以上的女性更是如此。随着自行车运动水平的提高，女性在所有年龄组中的比例都有所提高，尤其是在儿童和老年人中。将城市和国家聚集成同质的自行车类型表明，高自行车水平总是与女性的高代表性和所有年龄组的良好代表性相吻合。在低循环设置中，情况正好相反。我们建议对自行车政策的评估包括性别和年龄组的使用作为除整体使用之外的基准。为了实现不同年龄和性别群体的代表性，使社区对骑自行车友好，并制定更安全的上学路线，