FACTORS INFLUENCING HDB RESIDENTS' DECISION MAKING IN THE USE OF CYCLING PATH NETWORKS (CPNS) IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Singapore has been experiencing rising greenhouse gases (GHG) in the past decades because of the invention of public and private transportation. Transportation contributed to 14.5% of the emission because of burning of fossil fuel. Hence, Land Transport Authority (LTA) has been trying to reduce car usage through increasing the cost to own private transport. Other than reducing private vehicles usage, LTA is also aiming to increase cyclists in Singapore by constructing more Cycling Path Network (CPN). Therefore, this study investigates into the factors that affect the HDB resident’s decision to cycle on CPN since there is limited study on it. This study will first investigate the factors affecting resident’s cycling adoption through the use of Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and factors like socio-economic, spatial condition and natural environment. Next, the study will then assess the criteria of residents in selecting cycling route before going into the potential improvement that can be made regarding cycling and CPN. Key finding of this research has found that affective and cognitive attitude, Perceived Behaviour Control (PBC) and opinion of important ones will affect respondent’s decision to cycle. Other variables such as gender, age bicycle possession and weather can significantly affect cycling adoption. As for the route selection criteria, riding on bicycle lane, avoiding steep slope and avoiding streets with lots of vehicles and crowd are identified as the top few criteria. Females were also found to be more inclined towards cycling on bicycle lane. The survey results have highlighted 2 main reasons of not using the CPN, one of them is the lack of presence of the CPN route as people does not know the location and second is that the route is not align with their destination, making it inconvenient. By knowing the factors affecting residents’ decision to cycle on the CPN path and the motivators to increase cycling rate, government will know which factors to target for residents with different demographics, making the solution more direct and effective.