Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background and Objectives
Cycling is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of sustainable transport strategies worldwide. Compared with private cars, it produces negligible emissions, requires less road space, and contributes positively to public health (Pucher and Buehler (2017)). For cities such as London, promoting cycling is not only a response to the global climate emergency but also a way to address pressing local challenges such as air pollution, congestion, and social inequalities in mobility access.
Over the past decade, London has launched a series of cycling initiatives, ranging from the construction of Cycle Superhighways and Quietways to the more recent re-introduction of low-traffic neighbourhoods (Transport for London (2018)). These investments reflect growing political and societal support for active travel, as well as recognition that cycling can play a meaningful role in shifting travel behaviour. Nevertheless, the actual quality of the cycling environment remains uneven across the city. Central districts often experience heavy traffic, fragmented facilities, and environmental burdens, while peripheral areas may enjoy greener conditions yet lack coherent connections to employment centres or public transport hubs. This unevenness creates barriers for everyday cycle travel and limits the potential of cycling to become a mainstream mode of transport.
Traditional assessments of cycling in London have tended to focus on individual aspects, such as the length of designated cycle lanes or the presence of green corridors. While informative, such isolated measures fail to capture the lived experience of cyclists, who are simultaneously affected by infrastructure design, environmental quality, and network connectivity (Giles-Corti et al. (2016)). What is missing is a holistic and systematic framework that can integrate these multiple dimensions into a coherent measure of cycling quality. Without such an approach, it is difficult for policymakers to identify where interventions are most urgently needed, or to evaluate whether current investments are leading to a more equitable cycling environment.
Against this backdrop, the objective of this dissertation is to develop and apply a comprehensive assessment framework for London’s cycling environment. By integrating infrastructural, environmental, and network-based perspectives, the study aims to provide both a methodological advance and an empirical basis for guiding urban mobility planning. Specifically, the research seeks to move beyond piecemeal evaluations and deliver a composite indicator that can reveal the spatial patterns, disparities, and bottlenecks shaping the potential for cycling across the metropolis.
1.2 Research Question
The overarching research question is:
How can the quality of London’s cycling environment be systematically evaluated by integrating structural, environmental, and network-based dimensions, and what disparities and bottlenecks emerge from such an assessment?
This question is pursued through three interrelated aims:
- Framework development
To design a Cycling Environment Composite Index (CECI) that synthesises three complementary perspectives:
- Structural rideability, capturing infrastructure types, geometry, and traffic-related stressors.
- Environmental perception, accounting for greenery, air quality, and proximity to natural landscapes.
- Network centrality, reflecting the connectivity, accessibility, and functional performance of the road system.
- Empirical application
To apply this index across Greater London, producing fine-grained evaluations at the road-segment level while also generating aggregated profiles at the borough scale. This dual perspective allows for both micro-level diagnosis of problematic street sections and macro-level understanding of wider spatial inequalities.
- Interpretation and policy relevance
To identify systematic disparities and critical bottlenecks that hinder cycling uptake, and to generate evidence-based insights for policy and planning. By highlighting where cycling conditions are weakest, and why, the findings aim to inform interventions that can enhance continuity, reduce environmental stressors, and extend high-quality corridors into a cohesive metropolitan network.
By addressing these aims, the dissertation contributes in two ways. Methodologically, it demonstrates how diverse datasets can be operationalised into a single evaluative index, offering a replicable framework for other cities. Empirically, it provides a detailed, multi-dimensional portraits of London’s cycling environment. Together, these contributions support the broader goal of enabling more sustainable, equitable, and resilient forms of urban mobility.