Spatial variation in bicycling: a retrospective review of travel survey data from Greater Melbourne, Australia

Understanding spatial variation in bicycling within cities is necessary to identify and address inequities. We aimed to explore spatial variation in bicycling and explore how bicycling rates vary across population sub-groups. We conducted a retrospective analysis of household travel survey data in Greater Melbourne, Australia. We present a descriptive analysis of bicycling behaviour across local government areas (LGAs; n=31), with a focus on quantifying spatial variation in the number and proportion of trips made by bike, and by age, sex and trip distance. Associations between the proportion of infrastructure that had provision for biking and the proportion of all trips made by bike were analysed using linear regression. Overall, 1.7% of all trips were made by bike. While more than half (53.2%) of all trips were less than 5km, only 2% of these trips were by bike. Across LGAs, there was considerable variation in the proportion of trips made by bike (range: 0.1% to 5.7%). Mode share by females was 35.0%, and this varied across LGAs from 0% to 49%. Tor each percentage increase in the proportion of infrastructure that had provision for biking, there was an associated 0.2% increase in the proportion of trips made by bike (coefficient = 0.20; SE = 0.05; adjusted R2 = 0.38). While we observed a low bicycle mode share, more than half of all trips were less than 5 km, demonstrating substantial opportunity to increase the number of trips taken by bike.