From Amsterdam to Vilnius: The European cities with the most and least frequent cyclists

For years now, the European Commission has been actively calling for citizens to "use their own energy". Active mobility is well known as not only a significant way to save energy, but also to boost physical and mental health.

Cycling is one of the best ways to go about this but, according to new findings, relatively few people across Europe use a bicycle as a regular form of transport.

The sixth edition of the Commission’s report on the quality of life in European cities published results from a survey undertaken in 2023.

It quizzed more than 70,000 European citizens from 83 cities in the EU, the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland, the Western Balkan countries and Turkey on a wide range of aspects of daily life.

The report touches on a variety of topics, including housing, financial stability, healthcare, the availability of green spaces and, naturally, transport.

Across the 83 cities surveyed, only a very few have a high share of daily cyclists, with even fewer counting cycling as a relevant transport mode.

On average, across all cities, bicycles are used as mode of transport by just 14 per cent of respondents.

Interestingly, their use tends to decline as cities get bigger. In a place with fewer than 250,000 people, around 16 per cent of residents say they cycle on a typical day. That figure drops to 14 per cent in cities which are home to between 1 and 5 million inhabitants.

Just three European cities reported that more than 35 per cent of their residents use a bike on a daily basis.

They are Groningen and Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Copenhagen in Denmark - and all three have fairly low populations.

In those locations, the relatively high usage of bikes has a knock on effect on public transport. In the survey, people