Assessing the market potential of electric bicycles and ICT for low carbon school travel: a case study in the Smart City of AGUEDA

Introduction Electric bikes (e-bikes) may help in transport decarbonisation in European cities. To fully assess the market potential of e-bikes, further research is needed to understand users' preferences and the range of factors that can contribute to people to shift from car use to low carbon vehicles such as e-bikes. This paper is built on the Be4Schools R&D project implemented in the smart city of Agueda in Portugal. It comprised the former study in the country that examined the willingness of students (aged 15-21 years) to use e-bikes for daily trips to school and that gathered their preferences towards specific ICT related attributes. Methods The methodology comprised a mobility survey and a stated-choice experiment (SC). The SC experiment gathered 2232 observations for modelling which were able to provide the relevant attribute informa'on trade-off between car travel, route and e-bike features (with or without specific ICT equipment). An extensive econometric analysis using was performed to assess the nature and extent of students' heterogeneity of preferences which also considered gender issues. The study aimed to contribute to the regional economic cluster on powered two-wheels' industry & innovation. Results The absence of cycling infrastructures (segregated from main road) and the absence of cycle lanes in the road infrastructure were ranked as the first, second and third most important barriers, by 25.4% and 24.8% of the students, respectively. The importance of a dedicated cycling route to school (segregated from main traffic) revealed to be critical as the odds of choosing an e-bike was found to be 6.5 'mes higher in comparison with the "no cycling infrastructure" option, ceteris paribus. This finding is aligned with the fact that cyclists would need to be exposed to high levels of motorized traffic in main roads and to increased perceived risks. The market potential of e-bikes is likely to be higher if ICT features can be added to e-bikes as the odds of choosing an e-bike when it comes with the preferred ICT devices is 1.7 times higher than the opposed situation (e-bike without additional ICT devices). Conclusions Research results are interesting for mobility policies and industry as the possible integration of ICT equipment in e-bikes may speed up the market uptake of this technology in smart cities. On the other hand, cycling infrastructures seem to be critical elements for increasing the demand for both conventional and e-bikes in the smart city of Agueda.