Suggested Citation:
Mohiuddin, Hossain, Shaila Jamal, Md Musfiqur Rahman Bhuiya (2022)

To Bike or Not to Bike: Exploring Cycling for Commuting and Non-commuting in Bangladesh

In recent years, Bangladesh has started moving its transportation vision towards achieving sustainability goals such as increasing bicycle infrastructure, sidewalks, reducing air pollution, etc. To contribute to the ongoing discussion, we explored factors that influence the use of bicycles for different trip purposes in Rajshahi, a medium-sized city in Bangladesh. A face-to-face household survey was conducted to collect individuals’ socio-demographic characteristics, their travel patterns for different trip purposes, and perceptions of the built environment. We developed four Integrated Choice and Latent Variable (ICLV) models to understand the influence of latent perceptions on bicycling for commuting and non-commuting (i.e., grocery shopping, going for tea, and recreational) trips. The analysis indicates that women are more likely to choose a bike for commuting trips but are less likely to use bikes for recreational trips. The results also show that the choice of commuting by bicycle is positively associated with commuting distance and negatively associated with residential land use. Walkability perception has a significant positive association with the choice of bikes for commuting and non-commuting trips. Road safety perception for active travel is positively associated with bike choice for recreational trips, and crime perception of the neighborhood is negatively associated with bike choice for grocery trips. The results from this study will be helpful for policymakers to understand and improve the built environment to attract individuals towards bike use.