Cycle commuting in Belgium: Spatial determinants and ‘re-cycling’ strategies

Grégory Vandenbulcke (), Claire Dujardin, Isabelle Thomas and Bas de Geus ()
Additional contact information
Grégory Vandenbulcke: Université catholique de Louvain, CORE and Department of Geography, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Bas de Geus: Department of Human Psychology and Sports Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium

No 2009073, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: This paper attempts to explain the spatial variation of the use of a bicycle for commuting to work at the level of the 589 municipalities in Belgium. Regression techniques were used and special attention was paid to autocorrelation, heterogeneity and multicollinearity. Spatial lag models were used to correct for the presence of spatial dependence and a disaggregated modelling strategy was adopted for the northern and southern parts of the country. The results show that much of the inter-municipality variation in bicycle use is related to environmental aspects such as the relief, traffic volumes and cycling accidents. Town size, distance travelled and demographic aspects also have some effect. In addition, there are regional differences in the effects of the structural covariates on bicycle use: the impact of variables such as traffic volume and cycling accidents differs substantially between the north and the south of the country. This paper also suggests that high rates of bicycle use in one municipality stimulate cycling in neighbouring municipalities, and hence that a mass effect can be initiated, i.e. more cycle commuting encourages even more commuters in the area to cycle. These findings provide some recommendations for decision-makers wishing to promote a shift from car to bicycle use

Keywords: cycling; commuting; spatial lag model; spatial regime; pro-cycling strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-11-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://sites.uclouvain.be/core/publications/coredp/coredp2009.html (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Cycle commuting in Belgium: Spatial determinants and 're-cycling' strategies (2011)
Working Paper: Cycle commuting in Belgium: spatial determinants and 're-cycling' strategies (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2009073

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) Voie du Roman Pays 34, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alain GILLIS ().