Cycling towards equity: Financial incentives as a strategy for mobility justice

Cycling is recognized as a key strategy for the transition to sustainable urban mobility and for improving public health, yet it remains a marginal mode of transport in many cities. In an effort to promote cycling, some places offer financial incentives to encourage people to use bicycles as a mode of transportation. However, these policies raise social justice concerns regarding who benefits from such policies and who does not. This paper explores the operationalization of a policy designed to promote cycling through financial incentives, specifically by compensating individuals for cycled kilometers with public transport credits. The study incorporates a social justice-oriented design and emphasizes the importance of diversifying cycling demographics, integrating cycling with public transport, and leveraging data to support fair urban mobility. Grounded in transport, mobility, and data justice literature, we introduce policy design guidelines for social-justice-informed ‘pay for cycling’ financial incentives, bridging social science and data science. These guidelines are illustrated through a pilot project for São Paulo’s “Bike SP” program, which includes app development, participant selection, and data collection. The pilot project reveals demographic and socioeconomic inequalities in cycling within São Paulo. It also provides a model for similar policies in other cities. The findings highlight the need for inclusive participant selection criteria and the potential of financial incentive policies to generate valuable cycling data, foster a cycling community, and integrate with broader mobility and public health policies. We argue that such policies should be part of a comprehensive strategy for creating an inclusive mobility environment. • Introduces social-justice design principles for ‘pay for cycling’ policies. • Combines data science and mobility data justice concepts. • Presents a pilot experiment for São Paulo’s “Bike SP” Program. • Provides guidelines with global potential and integration to public transport. • Introduces an open-source smartphone app supporting the policy.