Suggested Citation:
Handy, Susan L. and Maarten Kroesen (2014)

The Relation Between Bicycle Commuting and Non-work Cycling: Results From a Mobility Panel

This study aims to establish whether or not bicycle commuting and cycling for other purposes (e.g. shopping, visiting friends) are related over time. Using previously gathered panel data (the Dutch mobility panel) these relationships are revealed by (1) a series of conditional change models and (2) a latent transition model. The conditional change models indicate that, with a lag of 1 year and controlling for a range of background characteristics, bicycle commuting and non-work cycling (in number of weekly trips) have a positive reciprocal influence on each other. The models show that work-related factors, such as the distance to work or whether a person receives a travel allowance, affect not only bicycle commuting but also non-work cycling. The latent transition model indicates that people can be clustered into four groups: non-cyclists, non-work cyclists, all-around cyclists and commuter cyclists. This model shows that people with a consistent propensity to not cycle at all (non-cyclists) or to cycle for both work and non-work purposes (all-around cyclists) are most stable in their travel behavior. Non-work cyclists and commuter cyclists are less stable in travel behavior. The model also shows that all-around cyclists are not (significantly) affected by a change in the distance to work. The article concludes with several directions for future research.