Bicycle Statistics: Usage, Production, Sales, Import, Export

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Hard facts on bike usage, production, sales, imports, exports and trade are hard to come by. Many of the best statistics are buried in papers that are presented at conferences such as VeloCity, ProBike and the Transportation Research Board (TRB). Sometimes these papers are published after the conferences but it can then be difficult to get a hold of the proceeding, and then they aren't very well indexed so you have to go through all of all of them to extract anything that might be useful to you.

We do not have the staff to be able to research this thoroughly. If you are able to find a good source of information please let us know so that we can share it with others.

Bicycle production fell to 79 million units in 1998, 25 percent below the peak of 107 million bicycles in 1995.  Source: State of the World 2001, World Watch Institute, Washington DC USA

Bicycle mileage per person and killed cyclists per mileage in ten countries; Source: WALCYNG, Report1. no.4, 1997, Lund University Sweden and Factum Austria.  Bicyclists' safety increases with increased bicycling in developed countries..

By Wittink, Roelof; I-ce Interface for Cycling Expertise: Planning for cycling supports road safety; In: Sustainable Transport, Planning for walking and cycling in urban environments, ed. Rodney Tolley; Woodhead publishing in Environmental management, ISBN 1 85573 614 4; 2003

World Bicycle and Automobile Production, 1950-2000

As can be seen from the figures, global automobile production very nearly caught up to bicycles in terms of total numbers by the late 1960's, but since then bicycle production has far outstripped that of automobiles and now stands at better than a 3:1 ratio; so while bike sales may be steady or declining in America over the past few years, they continue to make enormous gains in other parts of the world--particularly Asia where China alone is now producing more bikes (40+ million per year) than all the world's automotive output.

Note also that while the global automobile fleet has expanded from less than 150 million to nearly 500 million over the past 30 years, during that same time over 2 billion bikes were manufactured, and the number of utilitarian/transportation cyclists around the world has grown to over 1 billion (of which China now represents about half the total).

UKDOT Journey Times Survey 1996

(ISBN 0 11 551926 2), published by the Stationery Office and featured in DOT Press Release 106 of 28.5.96. The findings include:-

• For journeys entirely within Central London, the average time was 33 minutes by car compared with 18 minutes by bike. By public transport the journeys took, on average, 31 minutes by rail and 38 minutes by bus. Taxi journeys took 20 minutes on average.
• The average direct distance (as the crow flies) for the short radial journeys was 3.9 miles, and for the central journeys 1.7 miles. However, the actual distances traveled were much longer. For example, the average on-road distance for short radial journeys by bike was 5.2 miles, and by car was 5.6 miles for central journeys these distances were 2.3 miles for bikes and 2.7 miles for cars.
• The proportion of time spent "in-vehicle" varied considerably by mode; from 97% for short radial bike journeys to only 30% from central rail journeys

The report includes comparisons with the same journeys surveyed in 1993. For all modes, except the bike, the 1996 journeys were slower on average than the 1993 journeys. The changes reported are subject to a number of influences (such as choice of routes and parking places, and worse weather in 1996), in addition to changes in congestion.

• For short radial journeys, the fastest made in 1996 was bicycle, and the slowest was bus, as in 1993, but bicycle was slightly faster in 1996.
• In contrast to other modes, there were overall reductions in time for both short radial and central bike journeys, by 8% and 5% respectively.

This is interesting firm evidence of the increasing advantages of bikes over other modes as congestion continues to worsen.  (Hugh McClintock, 1996)

Mode Space Requirements

One single-occupant car requires 75 times the amount of urban space as a pedestrian, 20 times that of a cyclist, and 13-40 times that of rail transit per unit of personal movement achieved (Professor John Whitelegg, 1993)

True Costs of Road Transport

In 1993 Professor David Pearce and colleagues analyzed the external societal costs of UK road transport and came up with an annual figure of £22.25 billion (US$ 35.6 billion).

In "Blueprint Five: The True Costs of Road Transport" they have revisited their findings and made substantial upward adjustments. There are much higher levels for noise (£3 billion annually) and congestion (£19 billion). New information about the danger of particulate – especially PM10’s from diesel – has led to a substantial upward revision in the cost of air pollution. Taken in total, Pearce and company now believe, the annual cost to society imposed by road transport to be £46-53 billion.

"Blueprint Five" is published by Earthscan at £10.95. [CTC Cycle Digest] (1998)

1996 US State Traffic Satety Stats

Compiled by Riley Geary, from data of the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, a part of
the NHTSA.  They now have a state-by state summary of traffic safety stats for 1996
at their website:  http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/stateinfo/index.htm
[Note the meaning of these numbers generated a lively discussion on several list servers!]