The Existing Behaviour of Urban Mobility Through Bicycles

What comes to your mind when you think of driving across Melbourne? Is the nightmare of traffic jams already frightening you? Well, there’s another angle of assessing the current transportation system in Melbourne. Most car owners in the city still burn fossil fuels to drive their vehicles. Fossil fuels release a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas – it traps heat and causes global warming.

Let’s do our fun exercise one more time – what do you think when we talk about urban mobility in Melbourne after 10 to 20 years? Will Melbourne’s traffic come to a standstill, or will people be commuting peacefully across the city? Driverless cars sound fascinating, but pedal-assisted e-bikes sound more realistic in the near future as far as urban mobility is concerned.

Riding an electric bike is healthy, comfortable, cost-effective, and environment friendly. If our future is green, then the future of urban commuting has to be e-bikes. In this post, we will discuss the changing trends that are evolving around electric bicycles.

The Existing Behaviour of Urban Mobility Through Bicycles

Studies show that a total of 635,000 daily trips were conducted on bicycles in Melbourne for different purposes. The majority of these trips took place on conventional bikes. The same study also suggests that electric bicycles increase the average trip distance by more than 50%. It shows that improving the appeal of riding e-bikes can boost the overall use of electric bikes in Melbourne. Enhancing the city infrastructure or providing subsidies can also do wonders to increase the electric bicycle appeal in the city.

Growth Potential of Electric Bicycle Uses in Melbourne

We have assessed the existing travel behaviour first because it was essential to calculate the future growth prospect of electric bicycles in Melbourne. At the time of the study, there were around 271,890 people who used to travel around 20 KM daily to go to their office. Only 4.8% of people among them were using an electric bike as a mode for their daily transportation.

The latest census report shows that more than 155,000 citizens are employed in Melbourne who lives within 7 to 14 KMs from their workplace. They could be the perfect audience for e-bike consumption in Melbourne. We can see more than ten thousand people riding an electric bike for commuting if we attract only 10% of this working population.

Kindly note that we have not considered students who live in Melbourne whose colleges are located within 10 KMs of their home or hostel. They could also be the potential riders of electric bicycles in Melbourne.

Conclusion

The growth prospect of electric bicycles in Melbourne is immense, but unfortunately, the market is highly underpenetrated. The local authority is heavily investing in building cycling infrastructure and promoting its uses. Unicorns like Uber also play a critical role in changing the bicycle trends in Melbourne. They have already rolled out hundreds of electric bicycles in Melbourne to manage their operations.

RILU Trading Pty Ltd is also making significant moves to make Australia a world leader in producing more and more bike-friendly cities. We are in the business of manufacturing and marketing flagship electric bikes. Locate your nearest RILU dealer now and buy the electric bicycle of your choice.