01473631

Component

Cities in China have experienced extremely large changes in both socioeconomics and traffic characteristics in the past decade. These changes have resulted in a long-term change in the percent of bicycle usage in the city areas. The primary objective of this study is to capture the changing trends of bicycle usage in cities of China from a macroscopic perspective and explore the reasons for the change. To achieve the objective, data are collected from 45 medium-to-large cities in different spatial regions of China. The data analysis shows that the percent of bicycle usage in cities of China gradually decreased in the past years with an average rate of 2.69% for conventional bicycles and 1.07% for all bicycles (including conventional and electric bicycles). Larger cities generally have lower levels of bicycle usage. The models are developed to analyze the relationship between bicycle usage and city-level characteristics. The results show that as the population and land area in a city grow and the income level increases, the average trip time becomes longer and more travelers choose to use motorized trip modes, which consequently reduce the bicycle mode share in the city area. This study concludes that the bicycle usage could keep decreasing in the future in cities of China.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE90 Transportation in the Developing Countries.

01470560

13-2408

English

14p

2013

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Bicycle travel; Case studies; Modal shift; Modal split; Urban travel

China

Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-2408

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:31PM