دانلود رایگان مقاله برنامه ارتقای دوچرخه سواری و تغییرات رفتاری در دراز مدت

Abstract

Cycling has a range of health, environmental and economic benefits compared with motorised forms of transport. There is a need to encourage more cycling, yet previous evaluations of cycling promotion schemes have been inconclusive about what works. A case study of a cycling promotion scheme at the University of Sheffield – the Cycle Challenge – is used in this paper to examine commuting behaviour and long-term behavioural shifts towards cycling in response to outside intervention at the organisational level. The Cycle Challenge was designed to encourage more people at the University to cycle through inter-departmental competition. Cycling behaviour was recorded before the Cycle Challenge and two years after the scheme’s completion. It was found that seventy five percent of participants who were not already regular cyclists reported increased cycling, yet the overall impact of this shift was limited because the majority of participants already cycled regularly. This failure to attract new cyclists suggests recruiting non-cyclists should be a priority in future schemes. Moreover, our study has methodological implications. Current strategies for evaluating the positive impact of cycle initiatives may overestimate the savings by neglecting the tendency of people to resume routine behaviour in the long run. Studies evaluating modal shift should therefore include provision for monitoring long-term behavioural change to provide input into estimated economic, environmental or health metrics of success.

6. Discussion

This article describes a case study of commuting behaviour and a cycling promotion scheme at a University in the UK, with an emphasis on whether long-term behavioural change occurred. The Cycle Challenge was a promotional scheme designed to encourage more cycling amongst people at the University. The Cycle Challenge had some long-term success, as 75% of participants who had the scope to increase their cycling frequency reported that they were indeed cycling more frequently when asked 2– 3 years later, although this proportion is based on a relatively small sample. However, it is not certain that any increase in cycling frequency can be attributed to the Cycle Challenge, as no comparison or control group was available. When asked whether the Cycle Challenge had encouraged them to cycle more only 47% of all respondents answered yes, and this increased to only 50% for those participants who reported they were cycling more frequently than they were prior to the Challenge. In addition, the absolute numbers of those who had increased their cycling frequency was relatively low, largely because the Cycle Challenge attracted a high number of participants who were already regular cyclists and who could not realistically increase their cycling frequency any further. This is a flaw common with other interventions of this nature (e.g. Bowles et al., 2006) or not considered when promotion schemes are evaluated (Yang et al., 2010).