THE BICYCLE AS A FEEDERING MODE: EXPERIENCES FROM THREE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

This paper examines the combined use of bicycle and public transportation for one trip, called bike-and-ride, in three countries with widely differing bicycle cultures and infrastructures: the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. The share of the bicycle in access trips is comparable to general levels of bicycle ridership in each country, but only for train services and other fast modes of public transport. Strong similarities are found in the characteristics of bike-and-ride trips and users, in terms of travel distances, travel motives, and the impact of car availability. The majority of bike-and-ride users travel between 2 and 5 km to a public transportation stop, with longer access distances reported for faster modes of public transport. Faster and higher quality types of public transportation attract significantly more bike-and-ride users than slower and lower quality types of public transportation. Work and education are the main travel motives, with the first dominating the faster modes and the second the slower modes of public transportation. Car availability has little influence on the choice of a combined use of bicycle and train, but strongly affects the levels of bike-and-ride for slower modes of transport. More people arrive by bicycle at train stations in the Netherlands than in Germany or the UK, which reflects the share of the bicycle in total number of trips