Cycling behaviour in 17 countries across 6 continents: levels of cycling, who cycles, for what purpose, and how far?

Figures & data

Table 1. Cities or regions contributing to country-level analysis (countries for which dataset was combined from multiple cities/regions).

Country	Geographies included for country-level analysis
Argentina	Buenos Aires; Cordoba; Mendoza; Neuquén y Cipolletti; Posadas; Resistencia-Corrientes; Rosario; Salta; Tucuman
Australia	Cairns Region; Darling Downs and Lockyer; Gladstone; Gympie, Gayndah, Kingaroy and Tin Can Bay/Cooloola; Mackay; Rockhampton Region; South East Queensland; Townsville; Toowoomba region; Wide Bay Burnett; Victoria Region
Brazil	Belo Horizonte; Feira de Santana; Salvador; Sao Paulo
Chile	Antofagasta; Arica; Copiapo; Coquimbo-La Serena; Gran Valparaiso; Iquique; Puerto Montt; Santiago; Temuco-Padre Lascasas; Valdivia

Table 2. Cycling behaviour and characteristics of cyclists for urbanised areas nationwide (listed in the descending order of cycling mode share).

Country	Region	Mode share of cycling (%)					Share of females in cycle trips	Median age				Median distance of cycle trip (km)	Median duration of cycle trip (minutes)
		All trips	Non-work trips	Work trips	All trips Males	All trips Females		Cyclists	All other road users	Male cyclists	Female cyclists
Netherlands	Europe	26.8	27.1	25.3	25.4	28.2	54.4	36	43	30	39	2	10
Japan	Asia	11.5	11.9	10.1	10.2	12.7	56.4	45	54	40	48		10
Germany	Europe	9.3	9.2	9.4	9.5	9.1	49.2	52	54	51	53	2	10
Finland	Europe	7.8	7.8	8.4	8	7.6	50.4	31	44	27	33	2	15
Switzerland	Europe	6.7	6.3	8.1	7.2	6.3	46.6	39	46	38	41	1.7	10
Argentina	Latin America	3.6	3.3	5	4.9	2.4	33.6	33	30	34	31		15
Chile	Latin America	2.7	2.3	3.7	3.9	1.6	30.8	36	32	40	29		20
England	Europe	2.1	1.6	3.9	3.2	1.1	26.5	38	41	39	38	3.2	16
Australia	Australia	1.8	1.8	1.2	2.4	1.2	35.5	34	40	34	33	2.5	15
USA	North America	1.1	1	1.3	1.6	0.6	30.2	39	50	40	37	1.9	15
Brazil	Latin America	0.8	0.4	1.3	1.4	0.2	13.2	35	31	36	31		20

Table 3. Cycling behaviour and characteristics of cyclists in the selected cities (listed in the descending order of cycling mode share).

City	Country	Mode share of cycling (%)					Share of females in cycle trips	Median age (years)				Median distance of cycle trip (km)	Median duration of cycle trip (minutes)
		All trips	Non-work trips	Work trips	All trips Males	All trips Females		Cyclists	All other road users	Male cyclists	Female cyclists
Amsterdam	Netherlands	28.7	28.8	26.8	27.1	30.1	54.7	37	42	34	39	2	10
Osaka	Japan	28.4	28.4	28.4	21.8	34.3	64.2	52	56	53	51		10
Tokyo	Japan	18.7	19.2	17.1	16.9	20.2	57.5	46	49	45	46		10
Munich	Germany	16.3	16.6	15	15.7	16.9	51.4					2	15
Nagoya	Japan	15.7	15.4	16.5	12.1	18.9	63	44	52	41	45		10
Cologne	Germany	14.7	14.7	14.9	15	14.3	48.5					2	15
Berlin	Germany	14.1	14.3	13	13.1	15	53.3					2.5	15
Hamburg	Germany	13.7	14.4	11.1	13.4	14	51					2.2	15
Yokohama	Japan	8.3	8.6	7	7.8	8.7	52.8	44	48	39	46		10
Rosario	Argentina	8.3	7.9	10	9.8	6.9	42.3	29	32	28	30		15
Zurich	Switzerland	6.4	5.9	7.8	7	5.7	43.8	40	46	39	41	1.8	10
Bogota	Colombia	6.3	4.3	9.6	9.3	3.4	27.8	34	34	34	32		25
Helsinki	Finland	5.3	5.1	7.1	5.6	5.1	49.5	37	42	35	40	3	20
Delhi	India	4.8	1.3	9	6.9	1.1	8.1	38	28	40	16	3	30
Kisumu	Kenya	4.3	4.2	5	7	2.1	26.2	28	27	30	27	5	20
Bangalore	India	4	4.2	3.8	4.3	3.2	20.7	41	41	41	26	3	20
Santiago	Chile	3.7	3.4	4.6	5.1	2.5	33.3	36	36	40	30	1.6	20
Buenos Aires	Argentina	3.3	3	4.5	4.5	2.2	34.3	35	31	36	32		15
Montreal	Canada	2.7	2.3	3.8	3.5	2	36.7	39	43	40	38
Cordoba	Argentina	2.7	2.3	3.5	3.5	1.9	35.8	31	30	35	26	2.2	15
London	England	2.6	2	4.7	4	1.3	25.3	35	37	36	34	1.9	15
Mendoza	Argentina	2.2	1.8	3.9	3.6	0.8	19.1	34	32	33	35		20
Mexico City	Mexico	2	1.8	2.9	3.2	1	24.1	34	34	37	29		15
Philadelphia	USA	1.9	1.8	2.4	3.1	1.1	33.5					2.3	15
Melbourne	Australia	1.9	1.7	2.4	2.4	1.2	26.3	35	39	36	33	2.9	20
Chicago	USA	1.5	1.5	1.5	2.2	0.9	32.2	37	46	36	37	1.5	15
Los Angeles	USA	1.3	1.3	1.6	2	0.7	29.9					2.3	20
Brisbane	Australia	1.2	1.1	1.7	1.9	0.6	27	34	38	33	36	2.8	15
New York City	USA	1.2	1.2	1.4	1.8	0.7	34.1					1.7	15
Seattle	USA	1.1	1.1	1	1.5	0.6	27.4					3.1	15
Belo Horizonte	Brazil	1	0.6	1.6	1.8	0.2	9.8	36	31	36	31		20
Salvador	Brazil	0.9	0.5	1.5	1.6	0.2	11.9	34	31	35	30		20
Gran Valparaiso	Chile	0.8	0.7	1.1	1.3	0.3	20.9						20
Sao Paulo	Brazil	0.6	0.3	1	1.1	0.2	12.3	30	34	31	28	2	20
Cape Town	South Africa	0.3	0.2	0.5	0.4	0.1	27	41	32	42	25		30

*blank cells: age data not available for Gran Valparaiso, and not available as a continuous variable for the four German cities and the four US cities (Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York City, Seattle); distance not available for cities in Japan and Latin America, and in Kisumu and Cape Town.

Table 4. Distance-based ratios of cycling across countries (ratio of proportion of cycle trips in a distance bin to the proportion of all trips in that distance bin; heat map shows gradation of all values combined; correlations are presented between mode shares and ratios within each distance bin).

Table 5. Distance-based ratios of cycling trips in selected cities (ratio for each distance bin is the ratio of proportion of all cycle trips in a distance range to the proportion of all trips in that range; heat map shows gradation of all values combined; correlations are presented between mode shares and ratios within each distance bin).

Figure 1. Gender representation and level of cycling in cities and countries (cities are mentioned along with their respective country 3-letter codes – ARG: Argentina, AUS: Australia, BRA: Brazil, CAN: Canada, CHL: Chile, COL: Colombia, ENG: England, DEU: Germany, IND: India, JPN: Japan, KEN: Kenya, MEX: Mexico, NLD: Netherlands, ZAF: South Africa, CHE: Switzerland, USA: United States of America)

Table 6. Age-specific female representation ratios of the urbanised areas countrywide (ratio of the proportion of women in cycling trips to the proportion of women in all trips within each age group; heat map shows gradation of all values combined, red: underrepresentation (ratio <0.7), yellow/green: moderate to proportional representation (0.7 <ratio< 1) and green: overrepresentation (>1); correlations of the representation ratios for each age group with the cycling mode shares, along with their P-values of statistical significance).

Table 7. Age-specific female representation ratios for the selected cities (ratio of the proportion of women in cycling trips to the proportion of women in all trips within each age group; heat map shows gradation of all values combined, red: underrepresentation (ratio < 0.7), yellow/green: moderate to proportional representation (0.7 < ratio < 1) and green: overrepresentation (> 1); correlations of the representation ratios for each age group with the cycling mode shares, along with their P-values of statistical significance).

Table 8. Cycling typology of cities and countries based on overall mode share of cycling, share of women among cycling trips, and age representation ratios (asterisks represent countries not included for clustering analysis, but placed next to the cluster with most of their contributing cities).