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Walking and cycling: improving combined use of physical activity/health and transport data

C. Sullivan & C. O’Fallon, January 2011, NZ Transport Agency research report 435

Context and objectives

Although this survey was commissioned by Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) mainly to measure levels of sport/recreation activity and to quantify physical activity in general, it includes data of interest to the transport sector on walking and cycling. In particular, people reported the amount of walking and cycling they did each day during the previous week and this was recorded separately for sport/recreation and for transport purposes (defined as ‘mainly to get from place to place’).

Volumes of walking and cycling for transport compared with sport/recreation

Active transport is common: ANZS 2007/08 results show 38% of adults walking, jogging/running or cycling for transport purposes during the previous seven days. One limitation that must be kept in mind with such results about volume of activity from the ANZS trip diary is that it only recorded instances where people did at least 10 minutes of an activity at a time (a common focus for research relating to potential health benefits of physical activity).

The ANZS provides sound quantification (previously lacking in New Zealand) of the relative size of recreational walking and cycling compared with walking and cycling for transport purposes:

• Of the total time in the ANZS trip diary recorded as walking (370 million hours per year), 37% was spent walking for transport purposes and 63% for sport/recreation. Two underlying components contribute to this total time: the proportion of adults doing the activity and time spent by such participants. The proportion of adults walking for sport/recreation (45%) in a week was slightly higher than the proportion walking for transport (35%). Those who reported any recreational walking typically reported about two hours per week, whereas those reporting walking for transport had a much lower median of about one hour (70 minutes) per week.

• Of the total time recorded cycling in the ANZS (34 million hours per year), 29% was spent cycling for transport purposes and 71% for sport/recreation (including mountain biking). The difference is driven by the greater numbers cycling for sport/recreation in any given week: during the previous week, more adults reported cycling for sport/recreation (6%) than for transport (3%). The amounts of time such participants typically spent cycling in a week were similar (median of 105 minutes for sport/recreation, 90 minutes for transport).

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