The unexpected stable market share of the bicycle in The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the share of the bicycle as the main mode in all person trips has been highly constant in the past three decades (about 27%). A constant share is remarkable because a number of developments in this period were unfavourable for bicycle use, like ageing of the population, growing number of immigrants, increasing car ownership, and a tendency to travel larger distances. The analysis of the paper confirms that the observed trend differs from the estimated trend, considering the autonomous developments. Possible reasons for the gap are other kinds of developments that might have encouraged cycling, and changed modal preferences in favour of the bicycle. Differences in trends in urbanised and not urbanised areas suggest that increased competiveness of the bike compared to the car in urban areas is a factor that explains part of the gap. Probably, the long-term bicycle-friendly policy of the Dutch national and local governments explains another part. The analysis of the paper gives no clear evidence of changed modal preferences. The impression is, that the policy and the increasing road and parking congestion in cities explain to a large extent why the bicycle retained its market share in an adverse world