Behavioural and Acceptance Assessment of Implementing an e-Bike City

Introduction

Transport policy is currently not finding a way out of its dilemma; the imminent need to decarbonize a sector fast which has barely moved in the recent past and the social requirement to maintain and increase accessibility across all modes, but not encourage sprawl while still allowing further decreases in the generalised cost of travel by new technologies and business models.

The SPUR subproject aims to understand the adoption of e-bikes given the bike infrastructure provided. We will specifically study how such an e-bike-city might win the public support needed for its implementation and how opinion might be affected by perceived challenges of (shared) micromobility for both environment and society. The research relies on longitudinal survey data, including several survey experiments. We aim to run a panel study among urban citizens and capture their mobility behavior and attitudes regarding an E-Bike-city and how these change under different scenarios. The baseline will ask behavioral questions to find out what infrastructure supply development and policy measures would have to be implemented to make people switch to (e-)bikes. The findings of the existing literature will inform further survey waves.

The Project

The survey studies how such an e-bike-city could be implemented and financed and what can enhance the acceptance of the infrastructural change to the urban fabric. The sampling will be focused along proposed new bike lanes or along existing bike facilities in Zürich and by comparing this sample with a random sample across the whole of Zürich. It will also include smaller survey experiments throughout the four panel waves to assess acceptance of different scenarios and across different steps of an implementation process. The scenarios will – on a rolling basis – build on findings of the other work packages and thus determine how the public will accept the proposed solutions. For example, we will study the general acceptance of (large-scale) infrastructure change, how ancillary policies and different financing mechanisms may influence public opinion, and how the framing of differently communicated visions and plans affects individual assessment.

Partners

Prof. Dr. Bryan Adey (ISM, IBI, ETHZ)

Prof. Dr. Kay Axhausen (VPL, IVT, ETHZ)

Prof. Dr. Francesco Corman (TS, IVT, ETHZ)

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Hellweg (ESD, IfU, ETHZ)

Dr. Anastasios Kouvelas (SVT, IVT, ETHZ)

Prof. Dr. Martin Raubal (GIE, IKG, ETHZ)