Casual Relationship among Activity Participation, Travel Patterns and Bicycle Usage: Case Study of Suzhou

There are causal relationships among travelers' activity participation, travel patterns and travel mode. Bicycle is one of the most important travel modes for Chinese travelers. The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationships among travelers' socio-demographic characteristics, household characteristics, activity participation, travel patterns and bicycle usage. For this purpose, this paper presents a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to capture these causal relationships. Several structural equation model systems are estimated in order to explore different relationships. This approach is demonstrated with a case study of Suzhou, China. Both direct and indirect effects of the influencing factor on bicycle usage can be found. The results of the paper can provide some useful insights into the mechanism of bicycle trip generation.