Electrically-assisted bikes: Potential impacts on travel behaviour

Sally Cairns, Frauke Behrendt, David Raffo, Claire Beaumont, Chris Kiefer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper reports on a review of the European literature about the impacts of having an electrically-assisted bike available to use, together with results from a trial in the UK city of Brighton, where 80 employees were loaned an electrically-assisted bike for a 6–8 week period. In the Brighton trial, three-quarters of those who were loaned an e-bike used them at least once a week. Across the sample as a whole, average usage was in the order of 15– 20 miles per week, and was accompanied by an overall reduction in car mileage of 20%. At the end of the trial, 38% participants expected to cycle more in the future, and at least 70% said that they would like to have an e-bike available for use in the future, and would cycle more if this was the case. This is consistent with the results of the European literature which shows that when e-bikes are made available, they get used; that a proportion of e-bike trips typically substitutes for car use; and that many people who take part in trials become interested in future e-bike use, or cycling more generally.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)327-342
Number of pages16
JournalTransportation Research Part A - Policy and Practice
Volume103
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Jul 2017

Bibliographical note

© 2017 TRL Limited, University of Brighton and other collaborating authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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