Private and public modes of bicycle commuting: a perspective on attitude and perception
Cancer Epidemiol
Private and public modes of bicycle commuting: a perspective on attitude and perception
A. Curto 0 1 2
A. de Nazelle 6
D. Donaire-Gonzalez 0 1 2 5
T. Cole-Hunter 0 1 2
J. Garcia-Aymerich 0 1 2
D. Martı´nez 0 1 2
E. Anaya 6
D. Rodrı´guez 4
M. Jerrett 3
M.J. Nieuwenhuijsen 0 1 2
0 CIBER Epidemiolog ́ıa y Salud P u ́blica (CIBERESP) , Barcelona , Spain
1 Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) , Barcelona , Spain
2 ISGlobal, Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) , Barcelona , Spain
3 Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California , Berkeley, CA , USA
4 Department of City & Regional Planning and Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill, NC , USA
5 Physical Activity and Sports Sciences Department, Fundacio ́ Blanquerna, Ramon Llull University , Barcelona , Spain
6 Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London , London , UK
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Introduction
utomobile dependence is a global phenomenon in modern
Asocieties, even for short trip distances. Almost 50% of trips
made in automobiles in Europe cover distances less than five
kilometres (
1
). This despite the fact that commuting to work/
school by car has been shown as positively associated with weight
gain and obesity (
2–4
) due to its contribution to a sedentary lifestyle.
Hence, the progressive substitution of private motor vehicles to
active forms of transport for everyday commuting has become
increasingly the focus of current urban transport and public health
policies (
5,6
). Commuting actively by bicycle provides
improvements in cardio-respiratory fitness and decreases the incidence of
cardiovascular risk factors by intensifying the daily amount of
cycling (
7,8
). Public bicycle-sharing programs have been presented
as one means to address concerns of automobile dependency
cultures due to their population-level promotion of regular
physical activity (
9,10
). Such systems can also reduce automobile
use (
11,12
) and ownership (
11
), although in European cities vehicle
trips replaced by bicycle sharing may not exceed 10% (
12,13
).
Although many studies have focused on elements of the built
environment as determinants of bicycle commuting, it has been
reported that attitude and perception can be greater determining
factors for an individual to commute actively than environmental
variables (
14–17
), even though environmental factors facilitate the
propensity to cycle and can also shape perceptions, especially
those related to safety, convenience and speed of cycling (
16–18
).
The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) (19) is a useful conceptual
framework when evaluating cognitive approaches toward bicycle
commuting (
15,17
). TPB states that attitude, subjective norm
(defined as the perceived social pressure to perform or not a
behaviour) and perceived behavioural control independently
influence an individual’s intention to perform a given behaviour
(19). The TPB also states that this intention is the immediate
antecedent of behaviour and that attitudes and perceived
behavioural control influences behaviour indirectly by its effect on
intention (
19
). In this study, attitude and perception of behavioural
control toward the general performance of cycling and toward
Bicing were evaluated.
Several European studies have assessed attitudes toward the
bicycle as a mode of transport in working-age populations (
20–22
)
and university settings (
23–25
). In-depth interviews comparing
bicycle commuting attitudes between European and American
commuters were also conducted (
26
). Attitudes toward public
transport and environmental issues among ‘members’, ‘prospective
members’ and ‘persistent non-members’ of a Chinese
bicyclesharing system have also been studied (
27
). To date, one study
assessed motivations to increase the attractiveness of a
bicyclesharing service using focus groups (
28 (...truncated)