In recent years, the users of our bicycle networks have diversified significantly beyond Lycra-clad commuters. Shared and privately-owned e-scooters have proliferated. E-bikes have made cycling more accessible and have powered a massive increase in bicycle food delivery. The diversity of user groups and vehicles creates new opportunities and challenges in planning and delivering an accessible and safe transport network.

The aim of this project is to understand the complexity of decision-making around driver licensing and car travel of Australian millennials. The historical growth in car use is coming to an end as young adults are becoming less likely to get a licence and drive cars. The millennial generation is poised between two key life stages – the first opportunity to get a driving licence and the transition into adulthood.

Understanding how millennials navigate these key mobility transitions could significantly reduce road deaths and injuries, road congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.

Cycling provides many benefits to individuals and society through improving physical activity and reducing pollution and congestion.  Yet a range of studies have found that attitudes toward cyclists are predominantly negative.  Worryingly, negative attitudes toward cyclists are associated with self-reported aggression and hostility toward cyclists. Public references to violence against cyclists are not uncommon and rarely given the same condemnation as, for example, violence toward women or bullying.

A recent study conducted by the applicants (“Dehumanization of cyclists predicts self-reported aggressive behaviour toward them: A pilot study”, Transportation Research Part F) found that around half of non-cyclists held dehumanising beliefs about cyclists. Dehumanisation means treating people as if they are less than fully human, or not fully evolved, and it is usually applied to racial or ethnic groups, homeless people or psychiatric patients.  On-road cyclists, in particular, look and act differently to ‘humans’: they move in a mechanical way and their faces are not often seen by motorists.

Worryingly, these dehumanising beliefs were correlated with negative attitudes to cyclists and were associated with self-reported aggression such as throwing objects at cyclists or using a car to deliberately block a cyclist.

In this study, the team aims to test interventions that can potentially reduce dehumanising attitudes and aggression toward cyclists.  Ultimately, this project may help improve the often-fractious relationship between cyclists and motorists and thus improve the safety of ACT cyclists.

Shared bicycle and e-scooter schemes, which we refer to as ‘shared micromobility’, have been expanding in cities across the globe.  Although these programs provide flexibility and increased choices for people travelling in cities, they have been critiqued as primarily serving young, male and high-income customers.  To date, little research has directly examined the role that shared micromobility programs play in supporting the travel needs of low-income populations.

To fill this research need, this project evaluates a subsidy program for low-income riders called ‘Lime Access’.   We find that Lime Access customers use the system in a way that achieves cities’ goals of providing equitable, sustainable transport choices in cities.