Environmental, Social, and Personal Correlates of Cycling for Transportation in a Student Population

Abstract

Objective:To examine the association between environmental, social, and personal factors and cycling for transportation among university students.Methods:Five hundred and thirty-eight university students participated in the questionnaire study. Multi-nominal regression analysis was applied to identify associations between independent variables and cycling behavior.Results:Forty-one percent of the students were regular cyclists and 15% irregular cyclists. Regular cycling was negatively associated with the perception of traffic safety and positively associated with high safety from bicycle theft, many friends cycling to the university, high emotional satisfaction, little physiological effort, and high mobility. Irregular cycling was positively related with environmental attractiveness and little physiological effort.Conclusions:Improving bicycle parking security and promoting peer support for and positive psychological experiences and convenient mobility of cycling may increase this transport mode among university students.

Validade e fidedignidade de um instrumento para avaliar as barreiras para o uso de bicicleta em adultos

“…Population-based studies conducted in Pelotas-RS, Brazil, observed that 17% of workers use the bicycle to commute to work 5 and 13% of adults use it in their leisure time 4 . By contrast, bicycling is substantially higher in high-income countries, between 22 and 32% to commute to work 6,7 , 41% to commute to college 8 , and 26% in leisure time. This visible difference in comparison with Brazil takes on a special meaning when one considers the potential of active commuting, such as bicycling, to increase overall physical activity (PA) levels 3 .…”

The Environmental and Population Health Benefits of Active Transport: A Review

“…In support of this theory, researchers have found that individuals whose friends and/or family members www.intechopen.com engaged in AT were more likely to walk or cycle for utilitarian purposes (de Geus et al, 2007;Titze et al, 2007). Similarly, social support has been shown to be positively related to AT (Ball et al, 2007;Titze et al, 2008).…”

“…Australian researchers suggested that this situation may reflect higher risk aversion among women; underscoring the importance of developing safe cycling infrastructure to promote commuter cycling among women (Garrard et al, 2008). Perceptions of lack of time (Oja et al, 1998;Shannon et al, 2006), car ownership (Ogilvie et al, 2008;Wen et al, 2010), road safety concerns (Garrard et al, 2008;Panter et al, 2008;Titze et al, 2007) and hilly routes (Troped et al, 2003) have also been associated with lower rates of AT. While weather conditions are often cited as a barrier to AT , it is noteworthy that the Scandinavian countries all have cycling mode shares above 10%, while cycling is much less common in Mediterranean countries, US and Australia (Pucher & Buehler, 2008).…”

“…Other personal factors that may favor AT include the desire to be physically active or to increase fitness (Oja et al, 1998;Shannon et al, 2006;Titze et al, 2007), intentions and habits to walk or cycle (Lemieux & Godin, 2009), and environment-friendly attitudes (Bopp et al, 2011;de Geus et al, 2008).…”

Validade e fidedignidade de um instrumento em Português para avaliar o padrão de uso de bicicleta em áreas urbanas

“…• Safety: a) use the bicycle against the traffic flow of motor vehicles, where cyclists may find situations of conflict with pedestrians on the sidewalks and adverse situations with motor vehicles on the streets2; • Climate: a) climate and temperature, pointed in literature as an important factor in the decision to use a bicycle 21 ; b) Social environment • Social support: positive encouragement is an important factor in the decision to use a bicycle for transportation or leisure 22,23 . Pedaling accompanied by another cyclist is considered an approximation of the social support to use a bicycle.…”