Effects of the London Cycle Superhighways on the usage of the London Cycle Hire

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Document Overview

This is a research article in the journal Transportation Research Part A (DOI 10.1016/j.tra.2018.03.020), written by Haojie Li, Hongliang Ding, Gang Ren and Chengcheng Xu. Its subject is the effects of the London Cycle Superhighways on the usage of the London Cycle Hire scheme.

Background on London Cycling

Daily journeys by bicycle in Greater London rose from 380,000 in 2004 to 610,000 in 2014, according to Transport for London.
The Barclays Cycle Hire, later renamed Santander Cycle Hire, launched in July 2010, and by the article's account more than 11,500 bikes at over 750 docking stations were in use across London.
The first two pilot Cycle Superhighway routes, CS3 and CS7, opened in July 2010. They run from outer London into and across central London to increase commuter cycling.

Research Question

The authors note that it remains unclear how the two programmes interact. They ask whether the cycle superhighways encouraged more cyclists to use the cycle hire service, and state that the paper contributes by evaluating this effect.

Methodology

A buffer-area based regression identifies the docking stations potentially affected by the cycle superhighways.
Propensity score matching (PSM) selects control stations and supports causal inference on the effects.
The effect area is tested using buffers of 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 800 metres from either side of the routes, with ridership regressed on a treatment indicator and covariates.
The authors state that the validity of PSM depends on an untestable unconfoundedness assumption, which they seek to mitigate by including as many potential confounders as possible.

Key Findings

The article reports that the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is positively and significantly related to the number of cycle hires, which the authors interpret as cycle hire services being more popular in certain areas. The article also cites a survey in which about 49 percent of cycle hire users said the scheme prompted them to start cycling in London.

Conclusions on Policy Programmes

The authors describe the cycle hire and cycle superhighway programmes as two important measures for encouraging cycling in London, providing a safe, fast, direct, continuous and comfortable way of cycling. They note that government reports and studies have assessed cyclists' responses, while identifying a gap in the literature on how the two programmes interact.

Why It Matters for Urban Transport Planning

The paper is written for researchers and planners concerned with cycling infrastructure and bike-sharing in cities, and it presents its causal evaluation of the London programmes as a contribution to that literature.

AI-Generated Summary

Document Overview

Background on London Cycling

Daily journeys by bicycle in Greater London rose from 380,000 in 2004 to 610,000 in 2014, according to Transport for London.
The Barclays Cycle Hire, later renamed Santander Cycle Hire, launched in July 2010, and by the article's account more than 11,500 bikes at over 750 docking stations were in use across London.
The first two pilot Cycle Superhighway routes, CS3 and CS7, opened in July 2010. They run from outer London into and across central London to increase commuter cycling.

Research Question

Methodology

A buffer-area based regression identifies the docking stations potentially affected by the cycle superhighways.
Propensity score matching (PSM) selects control stations and supports causal inference on the effects.
The effect area is tested using buffers of 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 800 metres from either side of the routes, with ridership regressed on a treatment indicator and covariates.
The authors state that the validity of PSM depends on an untestable unconfoundedness assumption, which they seek to mitigate by including as many potential confounders as possible.