Project Description

Cities have drawn attention and strategies to promote the bicycle as a viable, accessible, and socially recognized transportation option. Notwithstanding, despite the importance of the social dimension within the sustainable mobility policy, empirical evidence suggests that bicycle investments are often unevenly distributed in cities in the global north and south. Likewise, equity issues have been far less addressed within bicycle planning and decision-making processes.

To further investigate such phenomena, this paper introduces the concept of relative bicycle equity and a planning support tool for assessing the Relative Equity Impacts of bicycle planning (TIRE). TIRE provides a micro-scale spatial assessment of the effects of cycling infrastructure provision on the accessibility levels of distinct socioeconomic groups, allowing a vertical equity assessment with great spatial detail for a city as a whole. Lisbon and its local cycling strategy offered the testbed for the development and operationalization of the proposed tool.

All in all, through the geo-spatialization of such distributive imbalances, TIRE supports the identification of target areas for future equity-oriented interventions.

Keywords: Bicycle planning; Equity; Accessibility; Spatial analysis; GIS

Research team

• Isabel Cunha (Ph.D. Student)
• Cecília Silva (Supervisor)

Financial Support

• FCT: PD/BD/146480/2019).

Stage of Progress

• Started in 2018