Determining global PBO

A recent post, published on the The Trek Blog by the eponymous US-headquartered bicycle manufacturer, opened with this paragraph: "As many Americans across the country are facing extended social distancing orders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are turning to cycling as an alternate means of essential transportation, for mental and physical health, and to keep the kids busy."

The company was releasing "…results from a nationally representative survey of over 1,000 American adults 18-years-old and over, conducted in partnership with research firm Engine Insights." Unsurprisingly, the presented data served to boost cycling as an upwardly trending activity. Locally observed for this weblog, anecdotal evidence seems to support that contention in the short term. The missing statistic in the Trek report was bicycle ownership.

The Trek survey data reporting opens with this phrase, "Of Americans who own a bike…" We wondered, "How many is that?" Online research revealed that PBO (percentage bicycle ownership) is the way researchers measure the bicycle numbers. It seems that worldwide there may be 580 million bicycles available for household use. That is an ownership figure; bicycle usage seems to be largely unexplored territory for researchers, so well done Trek.

We found one statistical survey—"Bicycles, however, have never been systematically counted and presented in the peer-reviewed literature"—which may be the only one of its kind available for global bicycle-ownership statistics: Tracking global bicycle ownership patterns by Oke, Bhalla, Love, and Siddiqui  Scientific papers are often mind-numbingly opaque for the general reader, but this one is quite readable, except for the technical sections on how the data was assembled and processed. If you are a cycling activist then this report has some thought-provoking information to offer:

While our study was not able to assess bicycle usage, we have found that about four-tenths of households around the world have within arm's reach a powerful tool for low-carbon transportation and healthy physical activity.

Citation: http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.jth.2015.08.006i

The good news for US-based manufacturers such as Trek is that the USA at 60-PBO is only in the second tier of bicycle ownership. The top tier is 81-PBO, so there is room for growth if the current enthusiasm for cycling is sustained after the coronavirus pandemic abates.