RadAKTIV: Identification and activation of non-cyclists

The German large scale mobility study “Mobility in Germany 2008” has found that almost every second person in Germany hardly ever rides a bike - or doesn't cycle at all. In contrast, only 13.4% of the population does not own a bicycle. This means that a large population of people in Germany have a bicycle at hand but are not using it. The Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Department for Geography, is taking up this so far largely neglected topic by its project “RadAKTIV” (translates as “CycleACTIVE”).

RadAKTIV identifies and groups non-cyclists and elaborates tailored scientific and practical approaches to activate these to start cycling. It integrates the experiences of former non-cyclists to learn from the triggers that changed their cycling attitudes and behaviour and looks at national and international good practise experiences of the same focus. The project combines political and practical benefits, directly contrinuting to people becoming active cyclists again while finding out about the reasons people give for not cycling.  The project thenlooks at how to overcome barriers keeping people from cycling - which have to be understood in order to create realistic policies to promote cycling.

In detail, RadAKTIV looks at a diverse set of factors influencing people not to cycle. It covers demographic aspects, personal motivation, safety perception, social and cultural norms, influence of group values as well as infrastructural conditions and availability of transportation means. It is the first project of its kind looking at non-cyclist groups and their reasons for not cycling in Germany.

For the practical approaches to motivate people starting to cycle (again), RadAKTIV performs a comprehensive analysis of national and international good practise measures following a set of criteria developed for RadAKTIV only. It then connects these with the different groups of non-cyclists that have been studied and grouped beforehand, developing packages of measures tailored to the specific needs of the respective groups. The packages and the measures within them also refer to recent developments in the cycling area such as the availability of e-bikes, cargo bikes, bicycle sharing services as well as intermodal options like the combination of cycling and public transport use.

The final result of RadAKTIV will be an “Action Guideline” referring to the barriers keeping people from cycling and the measures that can help to overcome these barriers. The project has started in 2018 and will to present results of the study in December 2020.