A bike scheme deprivation analysis

Here’s a study from the Journal of Preventive Medicine looking at inequalities in registration for and use of ‘boris bikes’ in London.  F. Ogilvie and A. Goodman found that those living in income-deprived areas in London were overall less likely to register for the bike scheme and that users were more likely to be male and from less deprived areas. However after adjusting for the fact that those living in these areas were less likely to live close to a bike station it was found that users from deprived areas made more trips on average than those from less deprived areas, which suggests “that there may be a greater latent demand for cycling in deprived areas, perhaps due to low levels of bicycle ownership resulting from lack of affordability or storage facilities”

The authors therefore concluded that the expansion of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme into more deprived areas has the potential to improve equitable uptake, noting the health benefits of cycling.

They also mapped the home LSOAs of bike users with london postcodes:

This shows how the IMD can be used to measure equitable uptake of programmes such as Barclays Cycle Hire as well as to illustrate the case for expansion by demonstrating need. For something similar, have a look at the Birmingham Bike Revolution.