Analysis of gender-specific bicycle route choices using revealed preference surveys based on GPS traces

Bike facility features in urban transport systems are one of the most important elements for encouraging user choices regarding sustainable transport modes. The process of designing the bikeway does involve biker perception but the act of designing does not often rely on this perception. In order to identify whether gender differences exist for bike route choices, the actual choices made by bikers - both male and female - have been detected by means of GPS data, with the pathways characteristics being known. Detected route choices have been analyzed using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method (Blinder, 1973; Oaxaca, 1973), which provides a possible explanation for differences in gender-specific route attributes that male and female cyclists experience under similar conditions. The results show that differences between female and male cyclists exist in terms of the ease of use of the pathways and related choices. Some analyses regarding age classes have also shown that gender differences tend to be less relevant with increasing age, thus suggesting that more-experienced female cyclists make choices similar to those of their male counterparts.