Fuel prices are an important determinant for many people's transport behavior and can influence not only motorized transport, but also the use of other modes of transport. In their new article, Jakob Findenegg and Jan Wessel deal with the question of how fuel prices affect cycling. The article is published in the journal Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.

The authors analyze the relationship between fuel prices and cycling in Germany. The empirically estimated cross-elasticity is positive and significant for utilitarian cycling trips and increased in 2022, when the development of fuel prices was more salient. To derive the results, the authors use exogenous variation in fuel prices caused, among other things, by Russia's war against Ukraine. The cross-elasticities are then estimated by applying both OLS and IV regression models to hourly bicycle counts from 72 automatic counting stations. The results provide valuable insights for transportation planning and sustainable policy making in countries with high modal share of cycling.