Cyclists’ perception of streetscape and its influence on route choice: A pilot study with a mixed-methods approach

Abstract

To encourage behavioural changes that reduce car use, understanding travel behaviour and interventions in infrastructure are necessary. Understanding the route choices of cyclists and their motivation based on their preferences regarding their trip attributes is essential to improve cycling infrastructure and encourage active travel modes such as cycling. This research aims to explore the influence of streetscape design features (SDFs) on cyclists' route choices by developing a mixed-method approach to collect objective and subjective data from 22 volunteers. We used a survey (Maptionnaire) with a virtual reality (VR) and eye-tracking experiment to simulate a bicycle trip in Enschede, The Netherlands. Results showed that despite differences between usual and ideal routes regarding SDFs (such as the presence of vegetation, water bodies, and road intersections), factors such as infrastructure provision and quality have a more significant impact when choosing a route. The novelty of the proposed methodology lies in combining data from the different methods to improve understanding regarding the influence of SDFs in cyclists' route choices and raise awareness among the participants about the influence of SDFs on their route choices. These results may encourage future studies to develop and implement alternative mixed-methods approaches to increase understanding of cyclists' travel behaviour. From a practitioner's perspective, implementing such mixed-method for data collection may increase the efficiency of the process to aid in the development of contextual data-driven interventions that encourage the use of bicycles.