By: Dennis Andreoli
Between February 18 and March 3, 2025, data were collected for an image-based study on cycling preferences. In this questionnaire, participants first completed a choice experiment, in which they were presented with eight sets of paired street images and asked to indicate their preferred cycling environment in each set. Subsequently, participants rated their perceived safety when imagining themselves cycling on each of the 16 streets shown during the choice experiment.
The collected data allow us to explore the influence of more than 15 architectural, road design, traffic, and environmental variables on cycling preferences and subjective safety, focusing specifically on residential and distributor road contexts. With the support of the Fietsersbond, a total of 1,469 usable responses were gathered.
Preliminary analyses suggest that perceived safety significantly affects cycling environment preferences. Results also indicate that distributor roads are, on average, perceived as safer than residential streets. Furthermore, on distributor roads, the presence of separated cycling infrastructure, the reduction of motorized traffic speeds to 30 km/h (GOW 30), and favourable environmental conditions emerge as key contributors to perceived safety.
More detailed results will follow soon. Stay tuned!