Objectives and necessity

The key objective of CyCity is to contribute to more efficient urban transport systems from the perspectives of sustainability, accessibility, and public health.

More specifically, CyCity aims to:
- increase our knowledge base within cycle planning;
- develop new methodologies and decision support tools for cycle planning and;
- develop new functionality for online cycle journey planners.

Besides its research goals, CyCity also intends to improve collaboration between researchers and practitioners within different cycle related fields, and to improve access to Swedish know-how related to cycle and other transport planning. Within CyCity, Swedish specialists from research fields such as traffic planning and engineering, traffic modelling, economics, traffic safety, behavioral science, and health science collaborate.

Why a research programme about cycle planning?

Cycling is a mode of transport that offers significant benefits for cities. It is space efficient, silent and environmentally friendly and integrates physical activity into daily transportation, thereby benefiting public health. Cycling can contribute to increased accessibility, economic prosperity, and social cohesion in cities.

But planning for increased cycling is a difficult task. Not least since urban planning has often been systematically car-focused during the last few decades. Apart from this, cities attempting to increase cycle use often face challenges from many fronts. Negative attitudes towards cycling, sparse knowledge about user needs and preferences, a lack of cycle planning experience as well as suitable planning and monitoring tools, barriers in institutional frameworks, and limited experience in marketing cycling all conspire to make cycle planning difficult.

With its broad approach, CyCity addresses many of these interconnected challenges by bringing together experts with different backgrounds, ranging from civil engineering to history and psychology, to better understand how to encourage cycling in cities. CyCity aims to contribute to increase the modal share of cycling in a systematic and cost effective way.