VELOA - Attracting women to cycling

VELOA focuses precisely on an area that has received little research attention so far: women who currently cycle rarely or not at all. The project investigates why certain groups of women are underrepresented in cycling and how this situation can be sustainably improved.

This involves not only individual mobility decisions, but also structural conditions in municipal planning. Women are less represented both as bicycle users and in planning processes themselves. VELOA aims to systematically integrate these perspectives and anchor them in transport planning.

To promote an inclusive and equitable transport system, the project specifically examines different groups of women with their respective needs and barriers—which persist even when the infrastructure is already well-developed. On this basis, a model participation process is being developed that enables municipalities to integrate women's interests equally into cycling infrastructure and thereby strengthen women's cycling mobility in the long term.

At the center are three core groups: second- and third-generation women with a migration background, women with care responsibilities, and female entrepreneurs. Their diverse realities of life and mobility requirements provide important insights into how transport planning can be made more equitable, inclusive, and future-proof in the future.