Challenged to Bike: Assessing the Potential Impact of Gamified Cycling Initiatives

Abstract

Cycling is promoted by a variety of initiatives and events all around the world. Given the popularity of such campaigns, there is surprisingly limited literature assessing their effectiveness and investigating the involved social processes. This paper presents findings from two case studies of gamified biking initiatives which have been evaluated using both quantitative-statistical and qualitative-interpretative methods: (1) a small-scale research experiment (“Frequent Biking Challenge”) and (2) an annual national biking campaign (“Bike to Work”). The two case studies provide insights into their general effects, on changes for different groups of bikers, the effectiveness of different elements of the interventions, and the methodological requirements for evaluating short and long-term impacts of campaigns aiming at increasing biking in cities. Both initiatives successfully encouraged people to bike more in the short run, 25% in the experimental group and 36% participating in the campaign increased their amount of biking during the intervention period. However, effects vary for different groups of bikers and only the “Bike to Work” campaign shows a lasting effect with 26% of those participating in previous years continuing to bike more. The results show that in order to induce long-term behavior changes, gamified biking initiatives have to be embedded into everyday life, enable social interactions and provide mutual encouragement.

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