Differences in environmental preferences towards cycling for transport among adults: a latent class analysis

BACKGROUND: Increasing cycling for transport can contribute to improve public health among adults. Micro-environmental factors (i.e. small-scaled street-setting features) may play an important role in affecting the street’s appeal to cycle for transport. Understanding about the interplay between individuals and their physical environment is important to establish tailored environmental interventions. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine whether specific subgroups exist based on similarities in micro-environmental preferences to cycle for transport. METHODS: Responses of 1950 middle-aged adults (45–65 years) on a series of choice tasks depicting potential cycling routes with manipulated photographs yielded three subgroups with different micro-environmental preferences using latent class analysis. RESULTS: Although latent class analysis revealed three different subgroups in the middle-aged adult population based on their environmental preferences, results indicated that cycle path type (i.e. a good separated cycle path) is the most important environmental factor for all participants and certainly for individuals who did not cycle for transport. Furthermore, only negligible differences were found between the importances of the other micro-environmental factors (i.e. traffic density, evenness of the cycle path, maintenance, vegetation and speed limits) regarding the two at risk subgroups and that providing a speed bump obviously has the least impact on the street’s appeal to cycle for transport. CONCLUSIONS: Results from the current study indicate that only negligible differences were found between the three subgroups. Therefore, it might be suggested that tailored environmental interventions are not required in this research context. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3471-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.