What do people have to say about e-bike use and ownership in the Lake District National-Park?

Blog written by Dr. Ian Philips

In our new paper Drs Ian Philips, Llinos Brown and Noel Cass from the Institute for Transport Studies in Leeds ran a 2-wave survey in the Lake District National Park in 2020 and 2021 and examined the qualitative comments and carried out self-study visits. Our respondents included e-bike users and non e-bike users, residents and visitors .

Many studies suggest e-bikes can help cut car use and CO2 emissions (e.g. Philips et al. 2022), so we wanted to find out how people use e-bikes, the level of interest in services and facilities that promote e-bike use, how e-bikes might link to public transport and attitudes towards using e-bikes to reduce car use including car restraint. However, we wanted to know more about e-bikes in rural tourist areas because most studies about e-bikes and other types of active travel and micromobility (e.g. walking, cycling, scooters) focus on urban areas (see for example Brand 2021 and International Transport Forum 2021 Report ).

What we’ve found

Rain and hills are not a barrier to e-bike use! People are riding more in a week in a wet hilly place than most people ride a conventional bike in a year.
E-bikers replace car trips for multiple purposes (we think e-bike planning should not just focus on commuting especially in rural tourist areas).

The bar graph shows miles travelled per week by purpose and gender of resident e-bike owners. There is a blue box stating, “this is a lot considering it is wet and hilly”. On the x-axis is the resident e-bike owners by gender and year. On the y-axis is miles travelled per week. Female respondents in 2020 travelled 41.2 miles for leisure activities, 7.4 miles for errands/shops, and 0.6 miles for commuting. Female respondents in 2021 travelled 29.2 miles for leisure activities and 9.1 miles for errands/shops. Male respondents in 2020 travelled 73.7 miles for leisure, 21.5 miles for errands/shops, and 21 miles for commuting. Finally, male respondents in 2021 travelled 61.4 leisure miles, 18.4 errands/shop miles, and 38 miles for commuting. — *_{E-bike miles travelled per week for different purposes. Due to rounding, columns in the graphs may not sum to exatly 100%.}*

Not only are people riding a long way, but some are also using e-bikes to replace car use. The e-bike owners replaced car trips with e-bikes more often than they replace cycling or public transport trips.

The bar graph shows how often car trips were switched to e-bike trips. On the x-axis is the resident e-bike owners by gender and year. On the y-axis is the % of resident e-bike owners who replaced their car journeys with e-bike journeys. Female respondents in 2020 who replaced e-bike journeys more than 3 times a week equated to 21%, less than twice a week was 33%, and not at all 46%. Female respondents in 2021 who replaced e-bike journeys more than 3 times a week equated to 24%, less than twice a week was 24%, and not at all 53%. Male respondents in 2020 who replaced e-bike journeys more than 3 times a week equated to 39%, less than twice a week was 21.5%, and not at all 28%. Finally, male respondents in 2021 who replaced e-bike journeys more than 3 times a week equated to 5%, less than twice a week was 10%, and not at all 86%. — *_{How often car trips were switched to e-bike trips}*

People didn’t stop riding e-bikes after lockdown: there was some drop in leisure cycling but people were still using them for errands and other purposes.
Survey respondents want secure bike storage.
Many are amenable to car restraint in the Lake District – more respondents agreed than disagreed that some car restraint could be beneficial both aesthetically and for business. Our respondents included e-bike users and non e-bike users, residents and visitors.
E-bikes have decarbonisation potential in rural tourist areas, in addition to being aesthetically more pleasing than a car dominated landscape.
Public transport + e-bikes could be popular (like allowing bikes on buses or integrated tickets).

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Barriers

Getting to the Lake District by public transport takes a lot of work.

Photo of (lack of) bike storage on a bus in the peak district. There are only 4 total slots for bikes to be held on this bus. — _{Lack of bike storage for travelling via bus in the Peak District makes travel difficult!}

Traffic levels speed and volume of traffic, lack of e-bike specific infrastructure.

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Conclusions

Finally it’s also worth noting that our results suggest that generally high use of and positive attitudes towards e-bikes in 2021 were not purely shaped by the Covid lockdown phenomenon, suggesting the long term post-covid potential of e-bikes in rural areas such as national parks. The challenge for policy makers is how to capitalize on this to engender long term behaviour change.

For any questions or more information, contact the team and don’t forget to check out the paper for more details!

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The ELEVATE Project

What do people have to say about e-bike use and ownership in the Lake District National-Park?

What we’ve found

Barriers

Conclusions

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