2024/11/24 by Alexander Bigazzi, Amir Hassanpour, Emily Bardutz · 1 voice · 7 citations
Engineering · Social Sciences · #Agricultural economics #Business #Economics #Environmental science #Geology #Greenhouse gas #Incentive #Microeconomics #Natural resource economics #Transportation Planning and Optimization #Transportation and Mobility Innovations #Urban Transport and Accessibility
paper · doi:10.1016/j.trd.2024.104519
published in Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment 138, 104519 (Elsevier BV)
openalex publication_date 2024/11/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This study investigates the travel behaviour and greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of an electric bicycle (e-bike) purchase incentive program in Saanich, British Columbia, Canada, which distributed purchase rebates in three tiers conditioned on household income. A panel of 402 study participants (including a control group) was surveyed in three waves. We find that 23 % to 76 % would not have purchased an e-bike without the rebate, increasing with rebate amount, and that the purchased e-bikes were used regularly. Larger, income-conditioned incentives were associated with higher pre-purchase automobile use and consequently greater post-purchase automobile travel reduction. The incentive recipients reduced their GHG from travel by an average of 16 kg CO 2 e per week one year after purchase, greater for the larger, income-conditioned incentives. The marginal and non-marginal GHG abatement costs were CA722 and CA190 per tonne CO 2 e, respectively, which is cost-competitive with other types of transportation subsidies, but not the international carbon market.