From EastAngliaByLines
What happens if you just give people a cargo bike — a bike specially designed for transporting children, the shopping, or even a wardrobe?
That was the question behind a 2023–24 experiment by researchers in Leeds, Brighton and Oxford. As part of the ELEVATE project into ‘e-micromobility’, 49 suburban households were lent electric cargo (e-cargo) bikes to see what would happen.
The results were striking. Participants cut their car mileage by 51%, and by the end of the trial, ten households had bought their own e-cargo bikes. Dr Ian Philips, senior research fellow at Leeds University and ELEVATE project lead, calls the findings “a positive message” for a form of mobility still in its early-adoption phase.