by
John E. Abraham
University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4
jabraham@ucalgary.ca
phone: 403-220-7418
and
Susan McMillan, City of Calgary
Alan T. Brownlee, City of Edmonton
John Douglas Hunt, University of Calgary
accepted for presentation at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, January 2002
July 2001
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This paper describes the design and implementation of an innovative stated preference survey for cyclists, undertaken to quantify attitudes and references, together with selected results.
The City of Calgary is upgrading its travel forecasting model. Planned improvements include the explicit inclusion of non-motorized modes, walk and bicycle, for all trip purposes. A scheduled traditional household-based activity survey was not expected to give sufficient numbers or detail about the revealed choices made by cyclists, who represent only a small proportion of all trips made for personal travel on a typical fall day. Additional data was needed to provide information, in a quantitative manner, on the existing attitudes and preferences of cyclists, particularly in relation to route choice and facility use.
Cyclists were asked to imagine making a particular bicycle trip for a specified purpose, length of the activity, familiarity with the destination and outside temperature. For this trip three different randomly generated cycling options were described, in terms of travel times on different types of cycling facilities (roadways and pathways), and type and price of facilities available at the destination.
Respondents were asked to rank their unique set of options in order of preference. The resulting respondent rankings were analysed with a logit model, which establishes a utility function measuring the attractiveness of a cycling option based on its characteristics.
Results show the relative values of different types of cycling facilities and trip destination facilities. Cyclists are attracted to shorter journeys, but are also willing to travel substantially further to ride on specific types of routes; and / or to destinations with specific destination facilities. Numerical measures of the influence of each facility type in the overall attractiveness of cycling are given. Their relevance in the design, implementation and calibration of transportation demand simulation models is also discussed.