Research Paper
Understanding the people’s willingness to change their intensions towards bicycle
Bicycles are the easiest and cheapest form of mode of transport which can be used to reduce pollution and other environmental negative externalities. Recently, with the awareness of its benefits, many cities around the world have successfully adopted bicycles in form of sharing scheme and inspired by this, Gandhinagar, the administrative capital of Gujarat also took initiatives to introduce Bike share Program. The planned city of Gandhinagar, compared to the other cities are endowed with a better bicycle-friendly environment with wide congestion free roads and surplus tree coverage, but yet saw a decline in the use of bicycles from the stands. Hence it becomes necessary to know the factors that stimulate individual to use (or not to use) the bicycles. As to modify the travel patterns, it is necessary to under- stand in detail the behavior of individuals and the reasons why they choose (or do not chose) a particular mode of transport. The aim of the present study was to understand the difference in the factors which determines people’s willingness to adopt bicycling in Gandhinagar. In order to recognize these factors, use of Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) components and the concept of transtheoretical model of change (TTM) were used. The study included a sample of 147 people drawn from the general public who already knew how to bicycle, traveled frequently every day and lived in the precincts of Gandhinagar. The results to an extent confirmed that the constructs, as measured by the TRA, only distinguished difference between Precontemplation, Contemplation, and Maintainers successfully, with exception of Active group which overall failed to form a linear relationship between all the stages. But in overall, the aggregate values of attitude are very low in all the stages with very small variations between them. Especially in case of their perceived benefits and the barriers, Majority of people agreed that cycling is good for their health and that it is an environmentally sound way to commute and similarly was observed in there perceived barriers especially the climatic related barriers. What differentiated them were the aspects of their personal and social norms, flexibility and their intentions which became more positive with advancing stages except the group who were already using bicycles in their daily basis (Active). The study also discussed about the short-term benefits of flexibility, which showed a very strong relationship with the process of change, and how the negative barriers has to be addressed and taken seriously if we wanted to persist a change in their decision to change. Implications of the current findings about the description of different characteristics which evolved out from the constructs were discussed in detail and ending the paper with plausible recommendation.
Published by: Sowmya Dumpala
Author: Sowmya Dumpala
Paper ID: V6I4-1223
Paper Status: published
Published: August 6, 2020
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