Abstract:

The New Zealand Household Travel Survey is an ongoing survey of household travel conducted for the Ministry of Transport. Each year, people in over 2 000 households throughout New Zealand are invited to participate in the survey by recording all their travel over a two-day period. Each person in the household is then interviewed about their travel and is also asked about their alcohol consumption and other travel-related information.

This fact sheet looks at cycling by New Zealanders – who cycles, where to, and how the patterns have changed over time. Note that this travel survey captures cycling in the road / footpath environment; off-road activities such as mountain biking are not included in these estimates. This fact sheet uses data from 14 070 people in 5 723 households, collected between July 2003 and June 2007. The information will be updated as new data become available. Words shown in blue are defined in the glossary at the end of this sheet. Click on the word or phrase to go directly to the glossary.

Highlights
Cycling makes up 1% of total time travelled and 1% of the number of trip legs. Males spend more time cycling than females for all age groups.
65% of those 5-12 years old, 60% of those 13-17 years old and 26% of those 18 years and over have cycled at some stage in the last year.
18% of people reported cycling in the last month.
Of those who have cycled in the last month, those in smaller towns or rural settings are more likely to have cycled than those in major urban centres.
70% of households of a family with children have one or more bicycles.
79% of those living alone do not have a bicycle.