Ralph Buehler

Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) | VT · School of Public and International Affairs

Walking is the most sustainable means of daily travel for short trip distances and is a key component of the overall transport system. This paper documents variation in walking rates among countries, cities in the same country, and in different parts of the same city. Our international analysis of official government statistics shows that walking r...

We report shared e-scooter ridership and rider perceptions on Virginia Tech’s Blacksburg campus before and after introduction of mandatory e-scooter parking corrals in January 2022. The analysis relies on a panel of 131 e-scooter riders surveyed in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022. Although parking corrals were perceived favorably prior to implementation,...

This article examines the impact of COVID-19 on cycling levels and government policies toward cycling over the period 2019 to 2021. We analyze national aggregate data from automatic bicycle counters for 13 countries in Europe and North America to determine month-by-month and year-to-year changes in cycling levels in 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019....

During the last 30 years, many cities and countries have promoted cycling to increase livability and the sustainability of their transport systems. This chapter provides an overview of bicycling internationally, comparing differences in cycling levels, trends, distance, duration, speed, as well as gender and age of cyclists across countries and cit...

Active transportation (AT) is widely viewed as an important target for increasing participation in aerobic physical activity and improving health, while simultaneously addressing pollution and climate change through reductions in motor vehicular emissions. In recent years, progress in increasing AT has stalled in some countries and, furthermore, th...

The provision of convenient, safe and seamless facilities for cyclists is one core success factor in promoting cycling as a mode of transport. Cycling infrastructures and planning philosophies differ greatly between countries, but there is no systematic overview or comparison of similarities and dissimilarities. The aim of this study is to provide...

Pedestrian facilities have been regarded in urban street design as “leftover spaces” for years, but, currently, there is a growing interest in walking and improving the quality of street environments. Designing pedestrian facilities presents the challenge of simultaneously accommodating (1) pedestrians who want to move safely and comfortably from p...

This paper compares bicycling in Washington, DC and Frankfurt am Main, Germany, two car-oriented cities that had adapted their urban transport system to car travel during the 20th century. Our comparative case study shows that both cities have been successful in increasing the percentage of trips made by bicycle between the late 1990s and 2018: Was...

Problem, research strategy, and findings For decades, planners have been drawing circles of a quarter-mile radius to determine easily walkable distances for neighborhood and activity center planning. However, the radius of such “planners’ circles,” or walksheds, is often informed more by convention than by data. Here we examine walk-trip distances...

International comparisons of cycling behaviour have typically been limited to high-income countries and often limited to the prevalence of cycling, with lack of discussions on demographic and trip characteristics. We used a combination of city, regional, and national travel surveys from 17 countries across the six continents, ranging from years 200...

E-scooter is an innovative travel mode that meets the demand of many travelers. A lack of understanding of user routing preferences makes it difficult for policymakers to adapt existing infrastructures to accommodate these emerging travel demands. This study develops an e-scooter route choice model to reveal riders' preferences for different types...

Shared micromobility such as electric scooters (e-scooters) has the potential to enhance the sustainability of urban transport by displacing car trips, providing more mobility options, and improving access to public transit. Most published studies on e-scooter ridership focus on cities and only capture data at one point in time. This study reports...

Using official national data for each country, this article calculates trends in walking and cycling fatalities per capita and per km in the USA, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. From 1990 to 2018, pedestrian fatalities per capita fell by 23% in the USA vs. 66%–80% in the other countries; cyclist fatalities per capita fell by 22% in t...

Travel has been found to have a positive utility—often measured as a desire for non-zero travel time. Although past studies have found that desired travel time varies by trip attributes, they often focused on a single trip purpose (e.g., commute) or single time point (e.g., peak period of one day) and rarely captured variation within individuals an...

Introduction Research shows that walking and cycling are sustainable means of travel that contribute to improved physical, mental, and social health. Those documented benefits justify the increased investment by federal, state, and local governments in walking and cycling infrastructure and programs in the United States, especially since 2000. This...

Since 2018, pedestrians in many U.S. cities have been sharing sidewalk space with dockless shared e-scooters. The introduction of e-scooters has received pushback from pedestrians. Complaints reported in the media include e-scooters blocking walkways and sidewalks when parked illegally as well as safety concerns from pedestrians who do not feel saf...

The article is open access at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198219300120?via%3Dihub Over the last few decades, walking and cycling have increased in the United States, especially in large cities. Future efforts to promote active travel will occur during a time when automated vehicles will increasingly perform driving task...

Local, state, and federal governments promote walking and bicycling in order to reduce emissions and improve public health. Tracking rates of bicycling and walking over time is important for assessing progress towards this goal. In the United States, most data are limited to cross-sectional self-report surveys (e.g., National Household Travel Surve...

Cycling is experiencing a revival in many cities. Research has focused on the determinants of cycling—in particular the role of the built environment and road infrastructure. Bicycle parking has received little attention—even though bicycles are parked most of the time. This article reviews the scientific literature on bicycle parking and identifie...

Walking and cycling—active travel—can help adults achieve the World Health Organization's recommended 150+ min of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity per week. Based on a nationally representative panel-survey of daily travel in Germany, this study assesses weekly minutes of active travel by adult respondents participating in a weeklong su...

Background Walking and bicycling are health-promoting and environmentally friendly alternatives to the automobile. Previous studies that explore correlates of active travel and the built environment are for a single metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and results often vary among MSAs. Objectives Our goal was to model the relationship between the...

Cycling and walking are environmentally-friendly transport modes, providing alternatives to automobility. However, exposure to hazards (e.g., crashes) may influence the choice to walk or cycle for risk-averse populations, minimizing non-motorized travel as an alternative to driving. Most models to estimate non-motorized traffic volumes (and subsequ...

The personal car is the most important mode of transport in most countries. Many policies are in place in different countries and regions to tackle unsustainable trends associated with car travel. A reason for the varying success of the same measure from one country to another might be different car-usage patterns. Using Germany and California as c...

Throughout the world, urban areas have been rapidly expanding, exacerbating the problem of many public transport (PT) operators providing service over different governmental jurisdictions. Over the past five decades, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have successfully implemented regional PT associations (called Verkehrsverbund or VV), which integr...

Bikeshare systems with docking stations have gained popularity in cities throughout the United States—increasing from six programs with 2,300 bikes in 2010 to 74 systems with 32,200 bikes in 2016. Even though bikeshare systems generate a wealth of data about bicycle check-out and check-in locations and times at docking stations, virtually nothing i...

Over the next 30 years, technological innovation will make automobile travel more convenient. Automated and connected vehicles will perform an increasing number of driving tasks without human input and will lure customers away from traditional public transportation. This paper first explores key characteristics of public transportation demand in th...

This article examines the boom in cycling research and publications that has accompanied the rapid growth in cycling infrastructure and cycling levels in Western Europe and the Americas. It shows that cycling levels at least tripled or quadrupled in 20 large cities while cycling safety has improved in almost all countries, with falling rates of cyc...

Cycling is the most sustainable urban transport mode, feasible not only for short trips but also for medium-distance trips too long to cover by walking. Cycling causes virtually no environmental damage, promotes health through physical activity, takes up little space, and is economical, both in direct user costs and public infrastructure costs. In...

Purpose of review: While many levels of government recognize that walking and cycling (active travel) are critical to healthy cities, a continued challenge is to identify and prioritize strategies that will increase walking and cycling for transportation. We review evidence on policies that can increase active travel. Recent findings: The review...

A number of recent studies have made progress on specific components of monitoring and modeling bicycle and pedestrian traffic. However, few efforts merge the goals of collecting traffic counts and developing spatial models to meet multiple objectives, e.g., tracking performance measures and spatial modeling for use in exposure assessment. We used...

Cycling and walking are commonly recognized as energy-efficient alternatives to motorized transport. Research and practice lack a comprehensive set of methods to assess spatiotemporal patterns of traffic volumes across an entire transportation network. Current non-motorized traffic monitoring programs are primarily implemented in urban areas and fo...

TRENDS IN WALKING AND CYCLING SAFETY IN HIGH-INCOME COUNTRIES, WITH A FOCUS ON GERMANY AND THE USA URL open access link to full article: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303546 ABSTRACT: Objectives. To examine changes in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities per capita (1990–2014) and per kilometer (2000–2010) in selected high...

Vienna, Austria reduced the car share of trips by a third between 1993 and 2014: from 40% to 27%. The key to Vienna's success has been a coordinated package of mutually reinforcing transport and land-use policies that have made car use slower, less convenient, and more costly, while improving conditions for walking, cycling, and public transport. D...

Vienna, Austria reduced the car share of trips by a third between 1993 and 2014: from 40% to 27%. The key to Vienna's success has been a coordinated package of mutually reinforcing transport and land-use policies that have made car use slower, less convenient, and more costly, while improving conditions for walking, cycling, and public transport. D...

Vienna, Austria reduced the car share of trips by a third between 1993 and 2014: from 40% to 27%. The key to Vienna’s success has been a coordinated package of mutually reinforcing transport and land-use policies that have made car use slower, less convenient, and more costly, while improving conditions for walking, cycling, and public transport. D...

Objectives: To examine changes in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities per capita (1990-2014) and per kilometer (2000-2010) in selected high-income countries, and in fatalities and serious injuries per kilometer by age in the United States and Germany (2001-2009). Methods: We used Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development data to estima...

It is crucial to improve cycling safety in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s injury statistics Web site (WISQARS) reports that in 2014, there were 902 cyclist fatalities and 35 206 serious cyclist injuries (requiring hospitalization). The United States has much higher fatality and serious injury rates per kilometer...

Vienna, Austria reduced the car share of trips by a third between 1993 and 2014: from 40% to 27%. The key to Vienna's success has been a coordinated package of mutually reinforcing transport and land-use policies that have made car use slower, less convenient, and more costly, while improving conditions for walking, cycling, and public transport. D...

Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, and Zurich – the largest cities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland – have significantly reduced the car share of trips over the past 25 years in spite of high motorisation rates. The key to their success has been a coordinated package of mutually reinforcing transport and land-use policies that have made car use s...

Research linking bikeway infrastructure and cycling levels has increased significantly over the last 20 years — with the strongest growth since 2010. The research has evolved from the study of lanes and paths, to include analyses of the role of intersection treatments, and finally to studies that attempt to measure the whole bike network. Most stud...

Multimodality, the use of more than one mode of transportation during a specified time period, is gaining recognition as an important mechanism for reducing automobile dependence by shifting trips from automobiles to walking, cycling, or public transportation. Most prior research on multimodality focuses on Western European countries. Based on the...

This study investigated potential economic benefits of bikesharing in commercial areas immediately adjacent to bikeshare docking stations. With the use of a sample of five Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) stations in Washington, D.C., an intercept survey of 333 bikeshare users at five CaBi stations at commercial activity centers and a door-to-door survey o...

According to national statistics 87% of all trips in the U.S. are by automobile and 90% of commuters typically get to work by car. Statistics for individual trips or the main mode of commuting do not capture variability in individual travel behavior over time. This paper uses the 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Surveys to analyze recent tre...

Federal, state, and local governments in the United States and Germany have the goal of reducing petroleum use and associated greenhouse gas emissions from passenger ground transport. This paper compares trends of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from passenger transport in Germany and the United States since 1990. Germany reduced CO2 emissions from...

Federal, state, and local governments in Germany and the USA strive to make passenger transport more sustainable to combat oil dependence, climate change, local pollution, and negative public health outcomes. This paper compares the Washington, DC and Stuttgart regions to demonstrate differences and similarities between the German and US land-use a...

Municipalities and employers in the U.S. attempt to reduce commuting by automobile through commuter benefits for riding public transportation, walking, or cycling. Many employers provide a combination of benefits, often including free car parking alongside benefits for public transportation, walking, and cycling. This study evaluates the relationsh...

In recent years, bikeshare systems have spread throughout the United States. Despite the increase in systems and users, little is known about how bikeshare member demographics and travel patterns compare with those of traditional bicyclists. To bridge the gap, this study investigated bikeshare system user travel behavior and developed a profile of...

This paper investigates trends in the travel behaviour of young adults in Germany, France, Great Britain, Japan, Norway, and the USA over the past few decades with a focus on car availability and car travel. The trend analysis relies on micro-data from over 20 National Travel Surveys from the study countries dating back to the mid-1970s. The analys...

This paper first provides a brief review of trends in public transport demand from 1980 to 2010 in 16 countries in Europe, North America, and Australia. The focus, however, is on a detailed analysis of public transport demand in Germany and the USA, using uniquely comparable national travel surveys from 2001/2002 and 2008/2009 for both countries. P...

This article analyzes the variation in bike commuting in large American cities, with a focus on assessing the influence of bike paths and lanes, which have been the main approach to increasing cycling in the USA. To examine the role of cycling facilities, we used a newly assembled dataset on the length of bike lanes and paths in 2008 collected dire...

Like other industrialized countries, Germany and Great Britain have experienced increasing motorization over the past five decades. However, results from national travel surveys, vehicle registration statistics, and driver's licensing databases suggest that young Germans and Britons today are less automobile oriented than their parents' generation....

Over the last 40 years, all levels of government in Germany have retooled policies to promote growth that is more environmentally sustainable. Germany’s experiences can provide useful lessons for the United States (and other nations) as policymakers consider options for “green” economic transformation. Our analysis focuses on four case studies from...

Background: Travel surveys in Europe and the U.S. show large differences in the proportion of walking and cycling trips without considering implications for physical activity. Purpose: This study estimates differences between Germany and the U.S. over time in population levels of daily walking and cycling at different health-enhancing thresholds ac...

Travel surveys in Europe and the U.S. show large differences in the proportion of walking and cycling trips without considering implications for physical activity. This study estimates differences between Germany and the U.S. over time in population levels of daily walking and cycling at different health-enhancing thresholds across sociodemographic...

The results of a study undertaken to understand the impact of variations in active transportation on the obesity in Europe, North America, and Australia are presented. The approach used was to assemble data from various sources that included both raw data from national surveys of travel behavior and health indicators obtained from government agenci...

This paper reviews trends in cycling levels, safety, and policies in Canada and the USA over the past two decades. We analyze aggregate data for the two countries as well as city-specific case study data for nine large cities (Chicago, Minneapolis, Montréal, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington). Cycling levels have...

Germany and the USA have among the highest motorization rates in the world. Yet Germans make a four times higher share of trips by foot, bike, and public transport and drive for a 25% lower share of trips as Americans. Using two comparable national travel surveys this paper empirically investigates determinants of transport mode choice in Germany a...

To assess changes in walking and cycling in the United States between 2001 and 2009. The 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Surveys were used to compute the frequency, duration, and distance of walking and cycling per capita. The population-weighted person and trip files were merged to calculate the prevalence of any walking and cycling and of...