Lecture by Thomas Krag, director of Dansk Cyklist Forbund (Danish Cyclist Federation), at the European Bicycle Day, 17th January 2000

Quite often bicycle user representatives ask public transport companies to improve their services for cyclists. The most usual services asked for are bicycle parking at the terminals and the possibility of transporting bicycles in the various means of public transport (trains, buses, ferries or airplanes). Bicycle rental at terminals is also an issue of interest.

Another relevant angle is looking at the bicycle aspect from the point of view of the public transport companies.

Public transport planning is a delicate matter involving a lot of conflicts and compromises and usually a need for external funding.

Making terminals represents considerable costs in a train system and stops always represents a loss of time, also in a bus system. In order to make a fast and affordable system one therefore has to reduce the number of stops.

On the other hand accessibility and flexibility requires that the terminals are close to where the people are, which is only possible by providing a big number of stops.

This basic conflict is usually approached by combining relatively slow bus systems providing many stops (feeder lines) with faster systems of buses or trains having fewer stops. This, however, results in rather complicated travel patterns involving two walking trips with two or more connected public transport trips, any of which should have as optimal changing conditions (short distance and small waiting time) as possible.

An interesting alternative to the slow public transport system working as feeder lines to and from the main lines is the use of bicycles. Given road and parking conditions are acceptable this provides a number of advantages:

• The user will have a much higher acceptance to being far away from the terminals
• The user will have a smaller journey time by minimising waiting times and reducing the number of changes
• The public transport company can save money by providing bicycle parking and carriage instead of feeder lines
• The public transport company can attract more customers by providing a better all-over product

Thus, the efficiency of the public transport system can be enhanced by increasing the amount of passengers using a bicycle to the main public transport terminals.

Cost savings can be achieved from reducing the level of service of the feeder lines. On top of this an improved system with more favourable conditions for bicycle users will attract more passengers and thereby increase the revenue of the public transport system.

In practice conditions are varying to a high degree. Simple models can be used to illustrate the order of magnitude of time- and money savings involved.

A lot of interest is associated with the possibility of bringing bicycle as accompanied luggage. This probably has to do with the aspect of feeling free: Having the possibility of bringing your bicycle into the public transport enables you to combine a relatively slow, area covering vehicle with a fast means of transport, and thus to have a freedom of movement comparable and sometimes even superior to the automobile.

So far as numbers are concerned the issue of bicycle parking at stations, at least when taken from Danish experiences, is much more important than the issue of bicycle carriage in trains. From 10 to over 40 percent of the train users go to the station by bicycle, while only .8 percent bring the bicycle into the train.