What Makes a Good Cargo Bike Route? Perspectives from Users and Planners

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12332
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Author: George Liu,Samuel Nello‐Deakin,Yuki Yamamoto,Marco te Brömmelstroet
• Date: 01 May 2020

What Makes a Good Cargo Bike Route?

Perspectives from Users and Planners

By GeorGe Liu*, SamueL NeLLo-DeakiN†,

marco te BrömmeLStroet‡, and Yuki Yamamoto§

aBStract. Cargo bikes—bicycles made to carry both goods and people—

are becoming increasingly common as an alternative to automobiles

in urban areas. With a wider and heavier body, cargo bikes often face

problems even in the presence of cycling infrastructure, thus limiting

their possibilities of route choice. Infrastructure quality and the route

choices of cyclists have been well studied, but often solely based

on a quantitative approach, leading to tools such as BLOS (bicycle

level of service). With various designs of cargo bikes being used for

a wide range of purposes, the route choice of cargo bike users is

difficult to generalize. This study combines quantitative and qualitative

approaches in order to explore what is important for cargo bike users’

route choice, and how this knowledge can be effectively used for

planning. Our results suggest that while some general preferences

exist, route choice involves complex dynamics that cannot be fully

explained by quantitative measures alone: in addition to understanding

“what” is important for cargo bike users, we need to understand “why”

it is important. Furthermore, route choice is also influenced by the city

context, making a study tailored to the local context essential.

Introduction

Citizens around the world are recognizing that the energy efficiency

and spatial compactness of the bicycle provides a transportation

*Doctoral Researcher, Dept. of Geography, Planning & International Development,

University of Amsterdam; Doctoral Researcher, Dept. of Built Environment, Eindhoven

University of Technology, Netherlands; Faculty, Urban Cycling Institute, Amsterdam.

†Doctoral Researcher, Dept. of Geography, Planning & International Development,

University of Amsterdam; Faculty, Urban Cycling Institute, Amsterdam.

‡Professor in Urban Mobility Futures, Centre for Urban Studies, AISSR, University of

Amsterdam; Faculty, Urban Cycling Institute, Amsterdam.

§Researcher, Urban Cycling Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 79, No. 3 (May, 2020).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12332

© 2020 The Authors. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology published by Wiley

Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which

permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly

cited.

942 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

solution for cities looking to improve the quality of their public space.

At present, per capita vehicle use is 6,000–7,000 kilometers per year

in Western and Northern Europe, and around 13,000 in the United

States (Lewis 2020). In order to meet the European target for reduced

greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, Europeans will need

to cut auto travel by about 66 percent; Americans will need to reduce

driving by nearly 90 percent (European Cyclists Federation 2011).

Many current urban trips include the need to carry more than the

rider. Parents may need to take their young children to school or to

the doctor. Cars and trucks currently carry groceries, equipment, and

other goods in quantities that exceed what an ordinary bike can carry,

even with luggage racks and a backpack on the rider.

For these uses, the “cargo bike” may be key to enabling the wide-

spread use of active transportation and enable cyclists to carry larger

loads, yet it is unclear if current bicycle infrastructure is designed to

accommodate these larger vehicles. Maximizing the use of cargo bikes

and reducing deliveries by heavy vehicles can pay dividends in terms

of carbon emissions, air quality, safety of street users, and better use

of urban space. Lightweight cargo bikes that can carry up to 250 kilo-

grams are already used in various cities, and constitute a reliable, fast,

and cheap way of delivering goods (Maes and Vanelslander 2012).

However, there has been relatively little attention paid to the fac-

tors that make some routes much better than others for cargo bikes.

Conscious consideration of these questions by transportation planners

can promote more rapid growth of cargo bike transport.

In this article, we conduct interviews in two cities—Amsterdam and

Stockholm—with cargo bike riders as well as planners to illuminate

the factors that are particularly important for cargo bike use. The two

cities have similarities in that urban cycling is a significant factor in

local transportation, though the mode share of cycling in Amsterdam

is much higher. There are also significant differences in topography,

spatial layout, and weather. Therefore, these two cities offer useful

comparisons and contrasts that may be valuable to planners and ac-

tivists in other cities as well. While we do not know the total number

of cargo bike users in these two cities, it is estimated that light elec-

tric freight vehicles can replace 10 to 15 percent of delivery-vehicle