By Srishti Agrawal, Adit Seth, and Rahul Goel
Emergent Conversation 23
This essay is part of the series Sustainable Urban Mobility in India, PoLAR Online Emergent Conversation 23.
With rapidly increasing motorized travel, Indian cities have distinguished themselves with a consistent rise in road traffic deaths, pervasive vehicular pollution, and congestion. Inhabitants of these cities do not meet the recommended levels of physical activity, and this is accompanied by low levels of female mobility outside the home (Goel 2023a). Globally, bicycling has been recognized as a successful transport intervention to overcome the aforementioned challenges, resulting in safe and livable cities, healthier populations, and providing an inclusive means of travel. The recent European Declaration on Cycling adopted by the European Commission in 2024 acknowledged cycling as a standalone mode of travel in the European Union and aimed to devise measures to improve its safety and use (EU 2024).
In India, one in six people cycled to work in urban settings nationally in 2011 (Tiwari and Singh 2018). However, the three population groups—children, women and the elderly—have a much lower representation in cycling compared to many other international settings (Goel et al. 2022). For example, 20.2 percent of men reported using a bicycle to commute compared to only 4.5 percent of women in urban India as per the 2011 census (Tiwari and Singh 2018), suggesting that cycling is characterized as a gendered activity. This underscores the need to ensure equitable cycling growth, necessitating context-specific policies that encourage not only cycling’s overall use but also policies specific to population groups. This would, in turn, bring us closer to the overarching goal of population-wide cycling uptake and its presence as a mainstream mode of travel. Here, we focus on cycling among one of these underrepresented groups—children. Evidence has indicated that interventions promoting cycling at a young age often translate into high cycling rates at an older age (Cardon et al. 2012). Cycling to school provides the required levels of physical activity (Ramírez-Vélez et al. 2017) and independence in mobility (Riazi et al. 2022) in children, thus improving their long-term health and instilling confidence in them. Essentially, it has a profound contribution to social justice and empowerment, for example, by improving access and gender equity in education and mobility, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
In our latest paper (Agrawal, Seth, and Goel 2024), we presented cycling-to-school levels among children aged 5-17 years and how these levels have varied over time. We used data from three rounds (2007, 2014 and 2017) of a population-representative nationwide household survey of India that reports information on the mode of travel to school (NSS 2008, 2014, 2018). We also evaluated the impact of a policy called the Bicycle Distribution Scheme (BDS) on cycling levels. BDS is a scheme under which school-going children aged 14-17 years are either provided funds to purchase a bicycle or provided with free bicycles (NITI 2020). These schemes are mainly administered by the state education department. The beneficiaries are mostly those who have passed the eighth grade (approximate age: 13 years) and enrolled themselves in secondary education (ninth and tenth grades) in government-run schools. The primary goal of BDS is to improve enrollment rates and retention in secondary education by improving access to schools for girls, as their dropout rates are higher. The BDS in West Bengal, known by the name “Sabooj Saathi,” claims that this scheme, in addition to its primary objective, is also expected to inculcate a sense of confidence among girl students by promoting mobility and encouraging environment-friendly and healthy means of transportation (WB 2015).
BDS has performed effectively in India, and its success can plausibly be attributed to two key factors: a) the political economy framework of the state, e.g., how political contestation has shaped its form, and b) the social objectives it has fulfilled, e.g., how well BDS achieves the desired aim of improving enrolments. BDS arises in a political economy where the state focuses on issues that are visible to the public eye and have a natural electoral appeal for the local politician, rather than issues with less salience to the average voter, yet critical for growth. The incentives for the provision of bicycles are well set. The bicycle is a visible good that can be “tagged” with the providing government’s name for “credit-claiming” (Auerbach and Thachil 2023). This is exemplified by the colours of the distributed bicycle, which are often subjected to contention as a ‘tag’ (PTI 2014, 2024).
There is strong and consistent evidence, both nationally and internationally, that BDS has successfully achieved its desired key objective of improving enrolment in education. The evaluation of this scheme in the state of Bihar in India showed that the provision of free bicycles resulted in a 32 percent increase in secondary school enrollment and a 40 percent decline in the corresponding gender gap (Muralidharan and Prakash 2017). Similar educational outcomes have also been reported in other LMICs, such as Colombia, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia (Fiala et al. 2019) and Zimbabwe. Note that the positive effects of BDS on education reported in Bihar were further found to be a function of the village’s distance to secondary school. Hence, (Muralidharan and Prakash 2017) argued that the mechanism for the effects lies in the reduction of time and safety cost of school attendance. In our study, we investigated how BDS influenced the mechanism – cycling use, through which favorable outcomes were attained.
In our analysis (Agrawal, Seth, and Goel 2024), we found that nationally, the levels of cycling to school increased from 6.6 percent to 11.2 percent over the decade (2007 to 2017). However, we observed that almost all of this growth was derived from the increase that happened in rural areas (6.3 percent to 12.3 percent). In urban areas, cycling levels remained stable (7.8 percent to 8.3 percent). The modal shift in traveling to school over the decade showed intriguing differences between rural and urban geographies. We found that walking contributed to the largest share in 2007 (~80 percent in rural and ~70 percent in urban). Though it retained its majority proportion in 2017, the levels reduced (~70 percent in rural and ~55 percent in urban). The replacement for this reduction in walking levels was distributed equally among cycling and public transport in rural areas and was solely through public transport in urban areas. Next, we observed a strong variation in cycling levels with distance to school and this variation was distinct across rural and urban geographies. In rural areas, cycling levels increased across distances, with a greater increase at longer distances (3-5 kilometers). In urban areas, cycling levels declined across distances, except for distances < 2 kilometers, where it increased.
The change in cycling levels over time differed by gender in both rural and urban areas. Overall, we found that in rural areas, cycling levels increased in the majority of the states among both girls and boys, with a greater increase among girls. In urban areas, cycling levels experienced either a decline or remained stable across most states, with a greater decline among boys. These figures demonstrate that the gender gap in cycling has reduced in both rural and urban areas, albeit in contrasting ways. The reduction in the gender gap happened through a greater increase in cycling levels among girls in rural areas and a greater decline among boys in urban areas. Overall, we found that the largest increase in cycling levels occurred in states where BDS was implemented. However, we find that the impact of BDS on improvement in cycling levels was greater in rural compared to urban areas. For instance, among girls in rural areas, the ten states that had the highest cycling levels and presented the largest growth over the decade were those with BDS. Even among boys in rural areas, six of the ten states that showed the largest increase in cycling levels over the decade were those with BDS. Among girls in urban areas, despite the support of BDS, cycling levels did not increase in the way they did in rural areas. Among boys in urban areas, BDS was applicable to only a few states, and even among those, cycling levels mostly did not change.
The stable trends in cycling levels, the modal shift from walking to public transport instead of cycling, the declining levels at longer distances, and the lack of impact of BDS contribute to the growing risk of traffic injuries in urban areas. This premise is supported by the reduction in cycling levels at distances >2 kilometers, unlike an increase at distances <2 kilometers, because longer distances often involve major roads and large intersections, increasing the risk of exposure to traffic injuries. There is enormous evidence globally that poor traffic safety discourages cycling use and uptake in urban geographies (Coll et al. 2014; Yang et al. 2017; Haug et al. 2021). In India, traffic safety continues to be a major roadblock due to the rapid rise of motorization which is evident in a two-fold increase in the proportion of urban households owning motorcycles (from 30.5 percent in 2005 to 60.6 percent in 2019) and cars (6.1 percent to 13.8 percent) (IIPS 2007, 2022). This unprecedented growth in personal ownership of motorcycles and cars is further accommodated through the large-scale construction of car-centric infrastructure. The elements of this infrastructure include building flyovers and widening existing roads to ensure an unobstructed flow of motorized vehicles and alleviate congestion. However, such unplanned infrastructure expansion causes high traffic speeds on urban roads that are unsafe for cyclists to navigate. According to an estimate for Delhi, the capital city of India, cyclists are 40 times more likely to die in a crash compared to a car occupant for the same distance traveled (Goel 2023b).
Though BDS did not have a strong positive impact on improving cycling use in urban areas, unlike rural areas, it did contribute to significant increases in some states, such as Bihar, West Bengal and Tripura among girls and West Bengal among boys in urban areas. Based on the differences in per-capita income, these states are among the poorest, especially Bihar (MoSPI 2023). It is commonly argued that the lack of finances to purchase a cycle is a major constraint among low-income households in India (TERI 2014). Given the issue of affordability, these households are able to buy only one cycle, which is certainly used by the head of the household, limiting the transport options for school-going children to walking (TERI 2014). This issue is more pronounced for girls as patriarchal social norms prevalent in Indian households prioritize the saving of the share of a girl’s resources for her marriage instead of utilizing it for her education and empowerment (Basu 2006), and these households plausibly would not buy a cycle for girls themselves (Muralidharan and Prakash 2017). The societal norms also produce gendered exposure to cycling at a young age (Sherwin, Chatterjee, and Jain 2014). In addition, the burden of household chores often falls on the female members, draining them of the energy and time required for walking long distances to school, especially at higher grade levels, resulting in their dropout in secondary education.
Amid the complex traffic safety challenge, providing free bicycles through BDS enables promising solutions by addressing the issue of unaffordability, introducing cycling to girls at a young age, and saving their time. This premise has strong empirical evidence in its favor. We found that unlike for boys in urban areas, where cycling levels declined sharply in a large number of states, cycling levels among girls either remained stable or increased significantly in a few states, signifying the importance of BDS, particularly for girls. Next, the BDS assessment findings in Bihar have shown both short-term (Muralidharan and Prakash 2017) and long-term benefits for girls (Mitra and Moene 2023). The former included an increase in enrollment rates and a reduction in the gender gap in secondary education. The latter included an increase in their participation in intra-household decision-making, higher education completion rates, engagement in jobs outside agriculture, and a delay of early marriage and childbearing.
By overcoming affordability issues and gender norms, BDS successfully contributes to social justice and empowerment. This indicates that it is imperative to understand contextual interventions that not only circumvent mobility constraints but also address immense social issues, such as improving girls’ enrollment in higher education, with long-term constructive consequences. Evidence has also pointed out that interventions aimed at building cycling skills (e.g., BDS) have the ability to transform population-wide mobility patterns (Ravensbergen et al. 2023). We would also like to highlight that the prevalent discourse on road safety barriers and their role in hindering cycling use in urban areas often obscures the relevance of context-specific interventions such as BDS, which is a low-hanging fruit in achieving desired social outcomes. We recommend that the way forward is to conflate policies such as BDS with improvements in traffic safety in urban areas, which would potentially result in widespread cycling use and simultaneously make it an inclusive means of mobility.
Srishti Agrawal is pursuing a PhD at the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Her research is focused on identifying road design interventions to improve the safety of bicyclists in Delhi. Her work involves applying epidemiological study designs, conducting large-scale longitudinal surveys, and geo-tracking data analysis. Through her research, she also aims to provide methodological guidance to researchers in data-poor, low- and middle-income settings to apply epidemiological methods to study traffic safety. She received the four-year Prime Minister Research Fellowship for her PhD. She did her Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering and her Master’s in Transportation Engineering.
Adit Seth is pursuing a Master’s in Economics at Tufts University. He graduated with a BSc in Economics from NMIMS University, Mumbai in 2024. He is currently working as a Research Assistant at Tufts University on housing cost burden in the US, and has previously worked as a Research Assistant at the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Center at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
Rahul Goel is an Assistant Professor at the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. His research lies at the intersection of transport and health, focusing on how travel patterns influence population health through air pollution, traffic injuries, and physical activity. He employs a combination of observational methods, modelling, and epidemiological approaches to evaluate the impact of road design and policy interventions on road user safety. Rahul is currently leading the development of a national database of fatal road crashes in India through systematic coding of police reports. His aim is to develop the evidence base for policies that can help mitigate non-communicable disease and injury burden resulting from urbanisation and rapidly changing mobility patterns in low-and-middle income countries.
Works Cited
Agrawal, Srishti, Adit Seth, and Rahul Goel. 2024. “A Silent Revolution: Rapid Rise of Cycling to School in Rural India.” Journal of Transport Geography 119 (July): 103950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103950.
Auerbach, Adam Michael, and Tariq Thachil. 2023. Migrants and Machine Politics: How India’s Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Basu, Kaushik. 2006. “Gender and Say: A Model of Household Behaviour with Endogenously Determined Balance of Power.” The Economic Journal 116 (511): 558–80. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2006.01092.x.
Cardon, Greet M., Lea R. D. Maes, Leen L. Haerens, and Ilse M. M. De Bourdeaudhuij. 2012. “Bicycling to School During the Transition From Childhood Into Adolescence: A Six-Year Longitudinal Study.” Pediatric Exercise Science 24 (3): 369–83. doi:10.1123/pes.24.3.369..
Coll, Carolina de Vargas Nunes, Alan Goularte Knuth, Juliano Peixoto Bastos, Pedro Curi Hallal, and Andréa Dâmaso Bertoldi. 2014. “Time Trends of Physical Activity Among Brazilian Adolescents Over a 7-Year Period.” Journal of Adolescent Health 54 (2): 209–13. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.08.010.
2024. “European Declaration on Cycling.” European Parliament and the Council. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-11/European_Declaration_on_Cycling_en_0.pdf.
Fiala, Nathan, Ana Garcia Hernandez, Kritika Narula, and Nishith Prakash. 2019. “Wheels of Change: The Impact of Bicycle Access on Girls’ Education and Empowerment Outcomes in Rural Zambia.” Innovations for Poverty Action. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://poverty-action.org/study/wheels-change-impact-bicycle-access-girls%E2%80%99-education-and-empowerment-outcomes-rural-zambia.
Goel, Rahul. 2023a. “Gender Gap in Mobility Outside Home in Urban India.” Travel Behaviour and Society 32: 100559. doi:10.1016/j.tbs.2023.01.004.
—. 2023b. “Population-Level Estimate of Bicycle Use and Fatality Risk in a Data-Poor Setting.” International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion 30 (3): 333–37. doi:10.1080/17457300.2023.2172737.
Goel, Rahul, et al. 2022. “Cycling Behaviour in 17 Countries across 6 Continents: Levels of Cycling, Who Cycles, for What Purpose, and How Far?” Transport Reviews 42 (1). Routledge: 58–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2021.1915898.
Haug, Ellen, et al. 2021. “12-Year Trends in Active School Transport across Four European Countries—Findings from the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) Study.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18 (4). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute: 2118. doi:10.3390/ijerph18042118.
IIPS. 2007. “National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 2005-06.” International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and Macro International. Access June 29, 2025: https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/frind3/frind3-vol1andvol2.pdf.
—. 2022. “National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019-21.” International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and ICF. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR375/FR375.pdf.
Mitra, S, and Ove K Moene. 2023. “Wheels of Power: Long-Term Effects of Targeting Girls with in-Kind Transfers S-34304-INB-1. International Growth Centre, London School of Economic and Political Science, Houghton Street, London.” Accessed June 29, 2025: https://www.theigc.org/sites/default/files/2017/02/Mitra-et-al-2017-Final-report.pdf.
MoSPI. 2023. “State-Wise Data on per Capita Income.” Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, India. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1942055.
Muralidharan, Karthik, and Nishith Prakash. 2017. “Cycling to School: Increasing Secondary School Enrollment for Girls in India.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 9 (3): 321–50. doi:10.1257/app.20160004.
NITI. 2020. “Promoting Bicycles in India. NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India).” Government of India. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://aicma.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/FINAL-NITI-REPORT-170-gsm-rept-FB-8-set-1-1.pdf.
PTI. 2014. “Gujarat Govt Slammed over Distribution of Saffron Bicycles to Girl Students.” The Indian Express, July 3, 2014. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/gujarat-govt-comes-under-attack-over-distribution-of-saffron-bicycles-to-girls/.
—. 2024. “Rajasthan Govt to Give Saffron-Coloured Bicycles to Girl Students, Announces Education Minister.” The Deccan Herald, September 3, 2024. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://www.deccanherald.com/india/rajasthan/rajasthan-govt-to-give-saffron-coloured-bicycles-to-girl-students-announces-education-minister-3175510.
Ramírez-Vélez, Robinson, Antonio García-Hermoso, Cesar Agostinis-Sobrinho, Jorge Mota, Rute Santos, Jorge Enrique Correa-Bautista, Deisy Constanza Amaya-Tambo, and Emilio Villa-González. 2017. “Cycling to School and Body Composition, Physical Fitness, and Metabolic Syndrome in Children and Adolescents.” The Journal of Pediatrics 188 (September): 57–63. doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2017.05.065.
Ravensbergen, Léa, Joanna Ilunga-Kapinga, Sabat Ismail, Aayesha Patel, Avet Khachatryan, and Kevin Wong. 2023. “Cycling as Social Practice: A Collective Autoethnography on Power and Vélomobility in the City.” Mobilities 0 (0). Routledge: 1–15. doi:10.1080/17450101.2023.2211238.
Riazi, Negin A., Kelly Wunderlich, Lira Yun, Derek C. Paterson, and Guy Faulkner. 2022. “Social-Ecological Correlates of Children’s Independent Mobility: A Systematic Review.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19 (3): 1604. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031604.
Sherwin, Henrietta, Kiron Chatterjee, and Juliet Jain. 2014. “An Exploration of the Importance of Social Influence in the Decision to Start Bicycling in England.” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Selected papers on the social context of travel behaviour, 68 (October): 32–45. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2014.05.001.
TERI. 2014. “Pedalling towards a Greener India: A Report on Promoting Cycling in the Country.” The Energy and Resources Institute, India. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://www.teriin.org/eventdocs/files/Cycling_Report_LR.pdf.
Tiwari, Geetam, and Nishant Singh. 2018. “Travel to Work in India: Current Patterns and Future Concerns.” Transport Research & Injury Prevention Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi. Accessed June 29, 2025: https://tripc.iitd.ac.in/assets/publication/TravelToWorkInIndia.pdf.
WB. 2015. “Sabooj Saathi, Government of West Bengal Initiative.” Accessed June 29, 2025: https://wbsaboojsathi.gov.in/v2/about_scheme.php.
Yang, Yong, Xue Hong, James G. Gurney, and Youfa Wang. 2017. “Active Travel to and From School Among School-Age Children During 1997–2011 and Associated Factors in China.” Journal of Physical Activity and Health 14 (9): 684–91. https://doi.org/10.1123/jpah.2016-0590.