Interrelationship and Order of Decision between Bicycle Choice and Trip Chain Pattern

Choices of bicycle mode and trip chain pattern are important decisions in individuals’ daily activities. Little is known about the interrelationship between the choice of bicycle and the pattern of trip chain. It is interesting to ask if a decision on bicycle usage is made before planning a trip chain or is dependent on a decision of trip chain. This study aims to explore the relationships between bicycle choice and trip-chaining pattern and capture the order between the two decisions. Using the data extracted from the household survey in a medium-sized city in China, co-evolutionary approach combined with binary logit and multinomial logit models is estimated. The results show that there are more bicycle usages in subsistence trip chains than in non-subsistence chains. In the majority of cases the trip chain is planned before the decision on bicycle choice, especially when the trip is related to subsistence activities. 76.33% of travelers who use bicycle for travel determine the trip chain first and choose to use bicycle accordingly. Only 25.69% of travelers who make mode choice first select bicycle as the trip mode. Findings are discussed to assist the development of policies to promote the bicycle usage.