Raimund K. Herz

The Use of the Bicycle

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Transportation Planning and Technology, 1985, Vol. 9, pp. 311-328
© Gordon and Breach. Science Publishers. Inc. and OPA Ltd. 1985
Printed in the United Kingdom

Raimund K. Herz
Institut für Städtebau und Landesplanung, Universität Karlsruhe,
Kaiserstraße 12, 7500 Karlsruhe, FRG
(Received April 3. 1984)

Excerpt from: Bicycle Reference Manual for Developing Countries. Edited by Barbara Gruehl Kipke, April 1991.

The rediscovery of the bicycle by the public, by politicians and by professional urban transporation planners as a mode of transport which is perfectly in harmony with the goals of environmental protection, energy saving and personal fitness has stimulated this empirical study on the actual use of the bicycle by various population groups for obligatory and discretionary tap purposes. The influence on bicycle usage of such factors as age, education. car availability, residential density and town size, topography and time of year is analysed in this paper for selected population groups. For housewives from motorized households logit-models were designed and calibrated to model their modal choice for shopping trips with special references to the bicycle. From the empirical results, the groups with the largest potentials for cycling are identified and the extent to which the potentials could be activated by specific policies is discussed. The research is based on a large sample held to be representative for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1976 and is supplemented by more recent surveys in selected German cities conducted by SOCIALDATA Munich.

Introduction
Approaches for Analysing and Modelling the Travel Behaviour of Cyclists
Category Analysis of Bicycle Use
Multinomial Logit-Modellind Model Choice
Trends, Potentials and Policies for Cycling
Concluding Remarks
References