Demographic and Geographic Heterogeneity between Subgroups of Cyclists

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

This paper seeks to improve the understanding of heterogeneity of behavior, preferences, and satisfaction within a sample of cyclists and how that heterogeneity is connected with demographic and geographic factors. It develops a method for identifying subgroups of the sample of cyclists and discusses how those groups differ sociodemographically and geographically in their cycling behavior to provide policymakers with a tool to better understand how cycling infrastructure improvements will affect different groups within the sample. It describes a survey of 905 cyclists completed in 2015 in Malmö, Sweden. First it reduces the dimensionality of the information from the survey to eight components with Factor Analysis of Mixed Data, a principal component analysis method. Next it demonstrates a categorization with six groups of the respondents with heterogeneous cycling behavior, preferences, and satisfaction with hierarchical clustering. Then it details sociodemographic and geographic differences between those groups. This paper confirms the thesis that it is possible to recognize sociodemographic and geographic similarities within and differences between subgroups of cyclists.