Workshop H 5, Wednesday 21 June, 16.00 - 17.30

Cycle promotion programs for specific target groups

Angela van der Kloof, co-ordinator, Centre for Foreign Women Tilburg, the Netherlands   Get on your bike!; Bicycle- and traffic lessons for foreigners in Tilburg, the Netherlands In the Netherlands, riding a bicycle is a very common form of transport. To the outsider, it seems everybody rides a bike. The truth, however, is that many inhabitants of the Netherlands do not know how to ride a bicycle. And although a large number of foreigners living in the Netherlands have acquired the skill, many of them can not or dare not face the traffic in the streets. Some foreigners are helped by friends or colleagues. Others are trained in bicycle riding and traffic rules at community centres and centres for foreigners. One of the places in the Netherlands where such training is given is the Centre for Foreign Women in Tilburg. In our presentation we will use quotes and examples to make clear why foreign women wish to learn how to ride a bicycle in Tilburg, and how they acquire the necessary skills. In the course of years methodologies have been developed for the theoretical part as well as the more practical issues of signalling, balancing and being part of the traffic. This presentation is relevant to all those who wish to stimulate the acquisition of bicycles and bicycle riding by foreigners in their respective countries, cities or villages. Our methodologies are also useful for organisations in countries where women generally do not ride bicycles. They will get an impression of the way in which bicycle courses may be developed and they will be given recommendations on how to deliver courses successfully.

Graham Marshall, Environmental Officer - Education, Western Australian Department of Environmental Protection Janelle Booth, Placement student at DEP, Notre Dame University The Western Australian Cycling 100 Project. This paper deals with a central problem relating to bicycle promotion in Western Australia.   Very few people currently ride to work in the Perth central buisness district.  Australian Bureau of Statistics "journey to work" data from 1996 revealed that 801 people were riding to work compared to 85,000 people travelling by car.  The major question then, is how can we motivate more people to use the bicycle mode to get to work and reduce our reliance on cars? Using the physical incentive of a free bike together with intensive health monitoring was predicted to be a good way to motivate individual car drivers to switch to bike riding for a minimum of four trips per week over a one year period.  The Cycling 100 Project has demonstrated that this incentive scheme is  proven to work with a certain "target audience" of car commuters.    Creating a successful cycle promotion project with clear and empirically derived health, job satisfaction and pollution-prevention benefits means we have the necessary evidence to ask for on-going and enlarged Government funds to promote cycling more widely.

Contessa Hajinikitas Report Workshop H 5