The influence of attitudes on university bicycle commuting: Considering bicycling experience levels

摘要

This study examined attitudes towards bicycling among bicycle users with different experience levels and how these attitudes influence the bicycle use. The study area is The Ohio State University's main campus and we used the 2015 Campus Transportation Survey that asked questions about different commuting modes to the campus, bicycling experience levels, attitudes toward bicycle use, and demographic characteristics. For the empirical analysis, we grouped 20 attitudinal statements on bicycling into eight factors by using principal component analysis: perception of living in a bicycle-friendly community; perception of bicycling barriers; bicycling willingness upon facility availability; awareness of bicycling benefits; familiarity with local bicycling information; preference for bicycling; sensitivity to bicycle security; and perception of the availability of campus bicycle facilities. We ran t-test analyses to examine whether the attitudes toward bicycling vary by bicycling experience levels. Then, we employed binary logit analyses to estimate the effects of the attitudes differentiated by bicycling experience levels on being a bicyclist. The empirical analyses show that experienced bicycle users have more positive and favorable attitudes toward bicycling while less experienced bicycle users perceive greater bicycling barriers. We also found that the availability of bicycle facilities has a greater importance for less experienced bicycle users than for experienced bicycle users.