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IVM

E-Bikes in trend: Impact on mode choice and CO2 reduction

In 2023, 1.85 million conventional bicycles and 2.1 million electric bicycles (“e-bike”) were sold in Germany making it the first year in which more e-bikes were sold than conventional bicycles. This trend indicates a growing preference for e-bikes among consumers, so that it is important to study whether increasing sales would also translate into increasing usage of e-bikes. In their new article "Electrifying choices: How electric bicycles impact on mode choice and CO2 emissions", Thomas Hagedorn, Marlena Meier and Jan Wessel analyze (i) the influence of e-bike ownership on transport mode choice and (ii) how a change in e-bike ownership affects CO2 emissions in Germany. Using longitudinal data from household surveys from 2016 to 2022, we first conduct a trip-level analysis with a mixed multinomial logit model (MMNL model) to estimate mode choice probabilities. The results show that the change in e-bike ownership significantly affects travel behavior, by increasing the likelihood of choosing an e-bike as means of transportation by 14.6 percentage points (p.p.), while correspondingly decreasing the likelihood of choosing other modes, especially conventional bicycles by 5.6 p.p, as well as car and public transportation by about 4 p.p each. Second, by using observed changes in individual distances traveled and transport-mode-specific emissions values, we calculate net emissions savings per person after acquiring an e-bike. These savings amount to 526.9 kg CO2 per person and year, which is roughly 6.6% of the average annual total CO2 emissions per capita in Germany. The article is published in Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment.