A retrospective study of behavioural transitions in bicycle use of commuters in Dar-es-Salaam

摘要

Travel behaviour literature focuses on factors that influence individual travel behaviour, whether socio-demographic, related to urban form and land use or to attributes of available transport modes. Less attention is given to investigating changes in travel behaviour and a possible relation with events or stages in the life of individuals. This paper examines transitions in cycling behaviour of daily commuters in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The study adopts the stages of change model to profile individuals with respect to their bicycle use. A retrospective survey was conducted among 448 daily commuters with a stratified sampling method. Stratification was based on current behaviour and related to the stages: prepared for action, action, maintenance and relapse. The study reveals that the majority of people start to cycle around primary school age. At that age cycling provides prestige and is considered to be fun, and it is more attractive than walking when covering larger distances. No differences in this respect are found between people living in the city at that time and those in the rural areas, although in the latter case trip purposes for bicycle use show differences. Analysis of people in the relapse stage, i.e. when they have stopped cycling, indicates that transitions into the relapse stage occur from all other stages considered. In a considerable number of cases stopping to cycle coincides with an event in the life of the individual, e.g. leaving school, moving to the city, broken or stolen bicycle, involved in traffic accident, got married. A variety of reasons is reported as motivation to stop cycling, of which lack of (perceived) traffic safety is dominant. Moreover, cycling experiences a strong competition from the dala dala, the local minibus shared taxis.