Cycling potential demand and travel behavour change in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania

The potential contribution of cycling as an in-expensive, affordable and sustainable mode of travel is immense in less developed countries and particularly in African cities. The benefits of cycling are two fold: It provides better access to activities and facilities that society considers vital for survival, and it creates employment opportunities for the most vulnerable urban population. Despite its well known advantages and significance for facilitating mobility, cycling has remained unrecognized and an inferior mode characterized by a very low modal share in most African cities. For example the current level of cycling in the city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania is only 5% which contributes to only a marginal amount as compared to its potential demand. There are various arguments raised for the low profile of cycling: safety, security, culture, history, weather, topography and lack of cycling infrastructure and some of these factors such as safety and security cannot be under estimated. There is still a need for understanding, however, how people can be influenced to change their travel behaviour towards the use of sustainable modes and the bicycle in particular. In this paper the transactional model of behavioural change is adopted to study attitudes and perceptions in relation to cycling for daily travel activity in Dar es Salaam. This model deals with intentional changes in behaviour. In an attempt to change behaviour, an individual typically moves through different stages of change (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance), sometimes several times before terminating a particular behaviour. Such an approach has not yet studied to identify focus groups in different stages of travel behaviour, whereas this information is relevant for pro-cycling transport policies and marketing strategies. The paper presents the results of a large pilot survey in the city of Dar es Salaam. The objective of the survey was two fold: first to achieve a market segmentation based on the different stages of behaviour change for the daily travel activity, and second to analyse and understand characteristics of each of the market segments like socio-economic status, current travel behaviour, attitudes and perceptions. The study shows that with respect to cycling as a mode of transport in African cities, it is essential to add a sixth stage in the transactional model, which is the „relapse‟ stage.