Bicycles, cyclists and loads: a comparative analysis of cycling practices in Gothenburg and Toulouse

Abstract

This article reports on a video-based analysis of bicycling practices in Gothenburg and Toulouse. It is based on actor-network theory, an approach that studies human and non-human entities and their contributions to social action equally. The paper examines bicycles and their interactions with cyclists and loads in the transport of people and goods. Accordingly, this paper presents methodological, theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of bicycle transportation as a possible method for developing sustainable urban environments. This paper also presents an innovative way to study ordinary social practices and describes how these practices shape associated societal issues.

Keywords:

• Cycling
• bicycle
• visual sociology
• consumer logistics
• sustainable city
• urban transport

Acknowledgements

This text is a product of a European research project that involves researchers from the Centre for Consumer Science and the Centre for Retailing at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and from the University of Toulouse in France. We thank the Centre for Retailing and the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, which provided one of the authors with the ideal working conditions under which to complete this work.

Notes

1. Another illustrative example of the predominant focus on meanings regarding different biking practices is Rachel Aldred’s (2010) taxonomy of cycling citizenships. This taxonomy includes environmental citizens, self-caring citizens, locally rooted citizens and community citizens as four different types of cyclists with different meanings for their biking practice. Although we are sympathetic to the differentiation of biking practices as presented by her study, we focus on the materiality of biking practices, which was not addressed in her analysis.

2. According to a French survey, 51.5% of the French households owned at least one bike in 2011 (Source: INSEE, Enquête budget de famille 2011). In Gothenburg, a survey with a random sample of inhabitants who were aged 18–65 years indicated that 80% had access to a bike, but only 7% had access to more than one bike (Splitvision 2013).

3. By default, qualitative studies such as interviews and ethnographical observations are necessarily rooted in local settings. But this is also the case with quantitative studies. In transportation research, for example, travel surveys and cycle counts tend to be the dominant methods of analysis. Although the analyses have a large-scale focus, these methods are also rooted in the micro-scale, pavement level (either by answers from individual informants or by automatic sensors located at specific sites). These data are then aggregated to represent a larger system, which can then be historicised, questioned and de-constructed (Oldenziel 2015).

4. The population of Gothenburg grew by 19% from 1990 to 2010, and the population of Toulouse grew by 23% between 1990 and 2010. Sources: https://www.citypopulation.de/php/sweden-metro-goteborg.php; INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques).

5. https://www.goteborg.com/en/Do/Student-in-Gothenburg/.

6. https://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/document.asp?reg_id=7&ref_id=15831&page=six_pages/6p_n125/6pages_n125page2.htm.

7. https://www.businessregion.se/download/18.104911d3124152ad2438000140765/Facts%26+Figures+for+the+G%C3%B6teborg+Region.pdf.

8. INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques) RP2012 exploitation principale; SCB (Statistics Sweden) Population statistics 2012.

9. Gothenburg: https://www.epomm.eu/tems/result_city.phtml?city=148&list=1; Toulouse: https://www.tisseo.fr/sites/default/files/Enquete_menage_deplacement.pdf

10. The list of similarities and differences could be made longer. We could add cultural details that circulate as stereotypes of the two cities’ inhabitants, but we focus on tokens that strengthen the feasibility that Gothenburg and Toulouse are comparable rather than incommensurable. We know that the two cities are not identical – without differences, comparison would be fruitless and without similarities it would be incomprehensible. We also know that our ability to comprehend and grasp the entirety of Toulouse or Gothenburg is as futile as it is to comprehend Paris (see Latour and Hermant 1998). As Latour points out, “there are only local summing up which produce either local totalities (‘oligoptica’) or total localities (agencies)” (Latour 1999c, 19). Hence, the ambition is not to produce a complete comparison of the two cities but rather to assess whether the two cities are good enough for this comparative exercise with regard to a limited number of features. Our goal is limited to an exercise where we circulate the reference of urban cycling mobility in two cities to expand our notion of urban mobility from the just there, just then to a more general notion of how urban mobility works (for a detailed investigation on circulating references, see Latour 1999b; Latour and Hermant 1998).

11. https://www.goteborg.com/en/Travel/Biking/.

12. With the launch of its bicycle plan in 2011, the city is ranked among the best equipped French cities for bicycle transport; Toulouse had 508 km of cycle track in 2013 (La Dépêche 2013b; https://www.toulouse-metropole.fr/documents/10180/3215739/DP_Visite_de_presse_plan_v%C3%A9lo_7_juin_2013.pdf/c8588092-37b9-4206-ac6a-21a4942b1282).

13. Our investigative method is consistent with the laws that allow for public space filming provided that we do not broadcast the pictures without the permission and/or anonymity of the concerned persons. Following these rules, our report does not include any of the analysed images.

14. For similar arguments, see Pink (2007), Schaeffer (1995) and Chauvin and Reix (2013).