Bike – Train Integration. The Role of Bicycle Parking in Promoting Sustainable Transportation along Norway’s Jæren Line

Abstract

Norway has set itself ambitious goals for the green transitioning of its transport. Intermodal mobility, meaning the integration of two or more green modes of transportation to use the advantages of each mode, has been put forward as a theoretical competitor to undesirable car transportation. The process of integration requires infrastructures to accommodate commuters’ needs and make sustainable traveling attractive with the ultimate goal of reducing car traffic. One such infrastructure is bicycle parking. This qualitative research project examines how bicycle parking as can function as a measure to increase intermodal commuting along the Jæren Line in South-West Norway. By employing a combined analytical framework, approaching cycling as a social practice, bicycle parking as designed objects and its facilitation as a collaborative process, the relationship between bicycle parking and cycling practice are explored. For this, a broad set of qualitative data is obtained through processes of mapping, auto-ethnographic fieldwork and conducting expert interviews with informants at relevant organisations. Subsequent analysis revealed how existing designed bicycle parking infrastructures, particularly in the context of bicycle theft, impact local cycling practices of intermodal commuters. Overall, this supports the notion that secure and convenient bicycle parking is an important measure to facilitate for more cycling, that should not come as an afterthought. However, findings also reinforce the understanding that shifting commuting behaviours is a complex endeavour and that wide range of other infrastructure, communication, incentive and regulative measures are also of importance for making intermodal transportation a viable option for commuters.