ELEVATE project supervises Institute for Transport Studies MSc dissertation

Written by Dr Alice de Sejournet, Dr Ian Philips, and Yi-Chen Huang

Last summer, the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) master’s student Yi-Chen, worked, as part of her master’s dissertation, with ELEVATE researchers to develop their study method and test the experiment. The aim was to measure the physical activity intensity of e-cargo bike use.

Why?

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), adults are not active enough; we do not get the recommended 150-300 minutes of physical activity each week to be considered ‘healthy’ primarily because we don’t have enough time ¹. However, substituting one’s daily car commute for active transport methods (e.g. walking and cycling) is a well-recognised way to increase weekly exercise to healthier levels. Electric-cargo bikes² (e-cargo bikes or ECBs) are convenient because they have varying levels of electric-pedal assistance, can carry cargo and/or passengers, and are an active alternative to the car in some places. Altogether, ECBs can help ease the burden of incorporating physical activity into busy lifestyles. Since ECB’s could, in some cases, substitute for trips that would have been done with a conventional bike, it is interesting to compare their physical activity levels. This is precisely where ITS Masters Student Yi-Chen’s dissertation comes in.

What was done?

Last July, Yi-Chen recruited 10 participants to compare the intensity of e-cargo bikes’ physical activity to that of conventional bikes. The participants rode three times on the same route. The trajectory was a 5km urban cycling route in Leeds, which took 15-20 minutes and featured a mixture of traffic lights, varying terrain and a main road. They rode it once with their regular pedal bikes and then twice with the e-cargobike. With the e-cargobikes, they were asked to use it with two different electric assistance levels. The participants wore a smartwatch which allowed them to record their heart rate throughout the experiment. They also completed a short questionnaire after each round to describe their perceived level of exertion.

What’s next?

Yi-Chen’s dissertation allowed ELEVATE researchers to test and refine the experiment. Next spring, more participants will be recruited to assess the following research questions:

• How can e-cargo bikes contribute to reach recommended physical activity guidelines?
• How do physical activity levels with an e-cargobike compare to a conventional bike?
• How does the terrain impact the above results?
• Do these results differ by gender? Or by type of ECB (longtail and long-john)?

If you use your bike in Leeds, consider yourself healthy, and would be interested to participate in our experiment, please leave us your contact details through this form. We expect to run the experiment in the Spring (likely May) and will contact you closer to the date to get your availabilities and see if you are eligible.

For more information on the MSc programmes of study at ITS see: https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/transport-masters

For any questions about the experiment, Alice de Sejournet, a.desejournet@leeds.ac.uk

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