Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
PhD Researcher, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Art, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Art, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
3
Full Professor in Urban Mobility, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Abstract
Introduction
Since the final decades of the twentieth century, a growing critique of car-dominated transportation systems has led to an epistemological shift in the humanities and social sciences, widely referred to as the mobility turn. Also known as the new mobilities paradigm, this theoretical reorientation challenges the static, functionalist understandings that have traditionally shaped urban mobility research. Instead, it emphasizes the dynamic, relational, and meaning-laden dimensions of mobility. Urban mobility is understood not merely as the act of transporting people from one location to another, but as a socio-cultural, political, and affective meaningful practice deeply embedded in individuals' lived experiences.
Against this backdrop, the present study critically reviews the existing literature on urban cycling lived experiences from a phenomenological perspective. It aims to synthesize fragmented research, reveal conceptual gaps, and propose a unified research agenda for future inquiry. The central proposition is that urban cycling should not be examined solely through functionalist or positivist lenses—as is often the case in conventional transport studies—but as a complex, embodied, and socially situated phenomenon that can be better understood through phenomenological inquiry into lived experience.
Methodology
To establish a robust conceptual foundation, the paper introduces Van Manen’s lifeworld existentials—lived space, lived body, lived time, and lived human relations—as an integrated framework for understanding lived experiences of urban cycling. Drawing on a comprehensive literature review, the paper argues that current research lacks a coherent conceptual model capable of accounting for the multidimensional, situated nature of cycling practice as a lived experience. While various studies engage with aspects of cycling experiences, they tend to selectively draw on disparate sociological or anthropological theories without offering a unified framework that can be generalized across contexts.
Through this lifeworld-based conceptual lens, the study rearticulates key research questions that examine how cyclists experience and interpret space, navigate social interactions, embody mobility, and make sense of temporality as they move through urban landscapes. These questions are designed to uncover the nuanced interplay between urban form, bodily engagement, emotional responses, and socio-cultural norms that shape the experience of urban cycling. In doing so, the paper foregrounds a view of cyclists not merely as users of infrastructure but as active agents whose movements and perceptions are co-constituted by their embodied presence in place.
Methodologically, the paper emphasizes the importance of adopting qualitative, immersive research strategies that are attuned to the experiential, affective, and sensory dimensions of mobility. In particular, it advocates integrating methods such as ethnography, autoethnography, photo-elicitation, narrative inquiry, and mobile interviews, which enable researchers to explore how meaning is constructed through embodied practice. The paper also highlights the value of innovative and participatory approaches, such as video analysis, mapping exercises, and creative storytelling, in capturing the tacit, subjective, and multilayered realities of urban cycling.
Conclusion
The review is based on an analysis of studies selected from major academic databases, all of which focus on the lived experiences of urban cycling from a phenomenological standpoint. Each study analyzes the lifeworld dimensions, revealing patterns in how space, body, time, and social relations influence cyclists’ experiences. Findings suggest that different urban contexts and social backgrounds significantly shape how cyclists perceive and negotiate these dimensions.
In conclusion, this study underscores the need for a paradigm shift in urban mobility research. Rather than focusing on normative prescriptions or purely functional concerns, researchers must engage with the experiential realities of mobility and the situated meanings that arise through embodied practice. The lifeworld framework offers a promising pathway to explore the holistic, intersubjective, and embodied aspects of urban cycling. It allows for a richer, more empathetic understanding of how people move through and make sense of urban environments on two wheels.
The proposed research agenda outlines both theoretical and methodological imperatives for future studies in this field. This research calls for deeper engagement with interpretivist epistemologies, cross-contextual and comparative studies, and greater attention to the material, social, cultural, affective, and emotional intricacies of cycling practice as a way of urban life. By centering the lived experiences of cyclists, this approach has the potential to inform more responsive, inclusive, and human-centered policies and designs in urban planning and mobility policy, ultimately contributing to the creation of more sustainable and equitable urban mobility.
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