Cycling or Ropeway – two choices of environmentally friendly urban modes

Ropeways have proven to be a suitable transit extension in Latin American cities and could be a solution for moderately sized European cities with capacity problems in their public transport systems based on trams and buses. Current travel demand models indicate a modal shift of car and public transport trips towards an urban ropeway if the system offers attractive travel times. Cycling is typically not considered in studies of ropeways but may compete with this new mode, especially in European cities. In this paper, we estimate a mode choice model for persons without car availability. Among other reasons, cyclists prefer biking over public transport due to shorter travel times, independence from timetables or crowding. A ropeway may change their choice, since its cabins are continuously available and offer low crowding levels. Based on a stated choice experiment, we estimated a mode choice model considering specific properties of a ropeway, public transport and cycling. The model considers travel times, costs, weather conditions, reliability and crowding. Using a mixed logit model, the parameter estimation indicates that crowding, reliability, weather conditions and personal attitude have a statistically significant influence on the choice behavior of people in Graz, a moderately sized city in Austria.