Impact of strategies to encourage bicycle use on work trips: a case study involving employees of Companhia Riograndense de Saneamento

Abstract

This study identifies the most valued factors for potential bicycle users on work trips and evaluate the impact of implementing different strategies to improve bicycle use. We applied an online stated-preference survey from 127 Companhia Riograndense de Saneamento (CORSAN) employees in Porto Alegre (Brazil). Then, we formulated hybrid ordered logit models to estimate the probability of bicycle use under different hypothetical scenarios. The results showed that locker rooms, bicycle parking, bike-sharing systems (bike loaner programs run by the company), training for employees in bicycle use and the presence of bike paths for access to CORSAN all encourage bicycle use. The availability of locker rooms proved to be the most important variable. The joint implementation of locker rooms, bicycle parking and bike-sharing systems (loaner programs) would increase demand by 66%. The strategies discussed in this article can easily be adapted to other contexts where there is a desire to increase shared bicycle commuting to workplaces.

Keywords

• hybrid choice models; bicycle use; stated preference; transport policies