We don’t really know how to get people to bike commute

I have three general approaches to finding topics to write about here. I search recent research on a general topic, I look up answers on a specific question that someone asked me, or I go down a rabbit hole where one question leads to the next and the next. Designing research studies can be similar, particularly in newer areas of research. Someone comes up with a question they are interested in and figures out a way to investigate it. Unfortunately, this means that there can be inconsistency in the research that makes it hard to come to overall conclusions.

Another issue is that research can’t test all options in many cases. Particularly in something like getting people to bike commute many possible interventions like supported route planning, group rides, equipment support, or infrastructure development aren’t within the budget or resources of the research. As a result, the interventions that are tested are based on what is available.

This is all leads to the findings of Lorsen and colleagues (2024). They did a systematic review, which means they looked at other research that had studied the topic. Specifically, they looked at behavioural interventions to increase commuting by bike. Behavioural interventions include education, workplace programs, motivational messaging, rewards, and travel plans.

There were only 25 studies of sufficient quality to include in the review. Of these support with travel planning, individually or in small groups, was consistently effective in the short term at least. The only other option that showed moderately positive results was the use of apps to gamify the experience through challenges and rewards. Obviously travel planning is resource intensive so those studies were smaller which may have skewed the results. Apps had some benefits but not for everyone, which is likely at least in part due to the larger sample size which would potentially include more types of people and compounding factors such as route planning, available infrastructure, and skill and comfort with riding a bike.

Unfortunately, the general gist is that we need more quality research to really dig into this topic and figure out how to get someone to bike commute.