The bicycle as urban transportation: utility and symbolic dimensions

Abstract

This article examines the factors associated with the choice of cycling as a means of transportation in medium sized cities, giving prominence to the role of less obvious factors, symbolic or emotional, compared to the rather expected technical ones. Distanced from the conventional studies regarding the use of sustainable means of transport, the methodology of the research is based on a different approach concerning the parameters linked to use of bicycle in cities. Under this viewpoint, emotions, habits and social norms are considered equally important to other factors like the natural and the built environment and the socio-economic parameters. The research includes a questionnaire survey, carried out in Volos, in which 363 people participated. The results revealed the important influence of symbolic and emotional factors associated with transportation choices, which are rarely taken into consideration by urban transportation planning. It seems that both the typical ‘objective’ factors and the less expected ‘subjective’ ones, may play an important role in redefining the travel behavior of city residents, and then the modal split in Greek cities.