Investigating the Relative Influence of Various Factors in Bicycle Mode Choice

Abstract

Rapid urbanization is becoming a common trend in developing countries like India, resulting in a consequence of transport in-equilibrium in urban areas. Pendakur (2002) mentioned that in 1995, 45% of the global population lived in urban areas, but by 2020, this is expected to increase to about 66%, which clearly warns us about the forthcoming urban transport crisis situation in urban areas. Padam and Singh (2001) mentioned that as the cities grow larger, the travel distances (trip lengths) and therefore, the travel costs increase geometrically. Which means the distance which was walk-able or bicycle-able, has no w become necessary to use vehicles. Although mobility and accessibility issues are addressed in urban areas still problems such as delay, congestion, accidents, air and noise pollution, energy wastage, etc are ever increasing due to rapid urbanization. But inadequate passenger or public transport especially in developing countries like India are forcing the high income group of people to choose personalized modes over public transport. People belonging to middle income group are mostly choosing intermediate or Para-transit such as autos, which are adding massively to the congestion and all other ill effects of transport. This leaves the lower income group of people or captive riders to suffer, which forces the researchers in this field to take a closer look in the urbanization crisis and problems. As reported by Wilbur Smith (2008) the future mode share in different cities are presented here, which shows a significant decrease in public transport and a very high increase in private mode share for all city categories and very high share of NMT (nonmotorized transport) in small sized cities, which shows the main importance of improving NMT infrastructure in small sized cities.