Mobility Matters Daily #148 - Lower income cycling, payment and theft, and walking to BRT

Also, e-bikes are outselling electric cars. By a LOT

Good day good friend.

Question: do the UK’s cycling commissioners have more Olympic Gold Medals than there are miles of segregated cycle tracks on main roads in the UK? Chris Boardman has one Gold Medal, while Dame Sarah Storey now has seventeen Gold Medals. Anyone up for running an analysis on Open Street Map?

Here is today’s pick of the transport news and latest research just for lucky old you.

James

---

How socially disadvantaged persons in society use bicycles is more complicated than simply saying they use them less

Proving the world is always more complicated than we think, this excellent analysis of data from England’s National Travel Survey reveals interesting detail on how socially disadvantaged people use bicycles. In short people in lower income households typically cycled less for transport purposes, but cycled more often than higher income households for leisure purposes. I’m not so sure about the policy implications of these findings myself, but it does show that there are fine details that often challenge our pre-concieved notions of how the world works.

New ways of paying for transport could mean less crime

A recent research paper by the Asian Development Bank posits an interesting theory - could new ways of paying reduce theft? There are some leaps of logic from the research in the paper that I find questionable - particularly as the researchers blend survey data on the impact of theft and value statements from criminals - but their central theory is logical. If we reduce cash payment, particularly for public transport, the incidence of theft could decrease¹. For users of public transport, this changes the likely crimes they will experience when using buses and trains. I wonder if there is any British Transport Police data that shows changes in theft as society has become more contactless?

Even if you change the bus, then people will still walk to it

It has been demonstrated that people who take public transport regularly are more likely to be active than those who don’t. But what researchers in Calgary sought to find out is if you swapped out one bus for another, would it change the number of people walking to and from stops. In this case changing from a bus to a Bus Rapid Transit. Short answer: it doesn’t. Which I find interesting, as this indicates that stop catchment areas (in English: how far most people are willing to walk to the stop) have not substantially changed since the service was introduced. Which you would expect with the introduction of a BRT service.

Something interesting for today

The number of e-bikes sold in Europe between 2009 and 2019 (Source: Statista)

In 2019, 3 million e-bikes were sold in Europe. The total number of electric plug in cars sold in Europe in 2019? 565,000.

If you do nothing else today, then do this…

Sign up for Sarah Barnes’ Along for the Ride newsletter. It is a great weekly newsletter on how to properly apply emerging transport technologies from a major transport geek.

…And finally

This is not turning into James’s travel diary I promise. But I am writing this as my train to Scotland slips silently through the Buckinghamshire night. Whilst I am very much in the cheap seats, and a lack of whiskey on board is a big disappointment, the Caledonian Sleeper has a certain dignity to it. I only hope I fall asleep as quickly as the family across for me have done.

Waiting to board at Euston

It’s not much, but it was home for the night

1. Ok, actually the threat faced by people just changes from having your wallet stolen to having your card details stolen, but bear with me here.