The bicycle continues gaining popularity in Flanders: 18,5% of Flemish travel by (electric) bicycle. In other words, never has there been so much cycling in Flanders. This is according to the Flemish government’s seventh study on travel behavior in Flanders. By comparison, in the Netherlands, 27% of journeys are made by bicycle.
Still, the car remains the most popular means of transport for commuting. Almost two-thirds, or 64%, of the working population use the car as their main means of commuting.
On an average weekday, 45.8% of trips are made as a car driver and another 14.5% as a car passenger. This means that over 60% of daily
trips are made by car, a proportion that has remained almost constant for several editions of the survey. So, the modal shift in Flanders remains slow to realize.
High figures thanks to the increase in e-bikes
Last year, more than two out of ten commuting trips (22%) used the bicycle as the main means of transport. This increase is mainly due to the use of e-bikes. Bicycle use is higher during the work week (20%) than on weekends (18,5%). In both cases, this is the highest proportion ever measured. The average commuting distance is 18,4 km.
The bicycle is also traditionally doing better for trips to and from school. The average homeschool distance is 9.8 km. Last year, this accounted for a 36,2% share. In general, the share of cyclists is highest among 13-17-year-olds (38%) and lowest among 25-34-year-olds (14%). More and more Flemish people own an e-bike: from 32,8% to 44%. The average age of the e-cyclist is 48, while the average age of the non-electric cyclist is 33.
Less use of public transport
Of the active population, 5,9% choose the train as their main means of commuting. A small group (4%) goes on foot and just over 2% choose bus, streetcar, or metro.
The use of public transport for commuting has fallen further in recent years to 8.2%, although 10.4% of Flemish people have a train pass and 22.5% have one with De Lijn. That low figure does, however, once again highlight the pain point of public transport in Flanders.
Just under 9% of Flemish people also use shared systems, almost five times more than in the previous study. Car ownership drops slightly from 82,5% to 81,2%, but the average annual distance traveled by car rises to 13,816 km.
The car is often used, even for short distances
The study, in which nearly 24,000 Flemish people participated, also shows that on an average day, the Flemish (from 6 years of age) travel 2.6 times, covering 29.3 km and spending 73 minutes in traffic. On average, men still travel more kilometers per day (32.8 km/day) than women (25.8 km/day). Someone with a higher degree also travels up to 3 times more kilometers than someone without a diploma.
‘Shopping’ remains the main reason for the Flemish to travel (19.7%), followed by ‘Work’ (17.9%) and ‘Leisure, sport and culture’ (15.7%).
However, more than half of all journeys in Flanders are shorter than 5 km, which means that Flemish people still often resort to the car, even for brief journeys of less than 1 km. This does impact air quality.
Almost half of the trips are sustainable
Almost half (46,9%) of the trips are sustainable on an average day. This share is down from the previous survey (2021-2022) but is higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is that by 2030, the Flemish people will make half of their trips sustainable.
Transport region Antwerp has the largest share of sustainable travel (58%), transport regions Limburg and Flemish Ardennes (both 37%) have the smallest. In transport regions Bruges, Ghent, and Kempen, the bicycle is used the most (both 24%), Antwerp falls just below (23%). In the transport regions of Flemish Ardennes (9%), Limburg, and the Flemish periphery around Brussels (both 11%), the least is cycled. This low figure is particularly striking for Limburg, as the province is widely praised for its extensive and well-kept bicycle network.
