What is already known
? Regular physical activity has numerous positive effects for health and wellbeing.
? In Switzerland, only 41% of the population fulfill the national recommendations on physical activity and health. Active transport (i.e. all non-motorized forms of transport) contributes substantially to total physical activity.
? Swiss adults who are cycling or walking on a regular basis for commuting, work, shopping or in leisure time are overall more physically active and less overweight and obese than those who don’t walk or cycle.
? Walking and cycling are more and more recognized as an important pillar of the urban transport system.
New findings presented in this report
? So far, health aspects have often played a minor role in decision making processes on active transport. Using the „Health Economic Assessment Tools (HEAT)" for cycling and for walking, developed by WHO, the economic benefits of health effects from regular cycling and walking in Switzerland were quantified for the first time.
Current economic benefits:
? Due to more frequent use of active transport, per-capita economic benefits from the positive health effects of active transport are highest in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, at about CHF 2.800 for walking and about CHF 550 for cycling . Benefits were calculated based on reduced mortality due to regular physical activity from walking or cycling, using the willingness-to-pay approach. In the Italian-speaking part of the country, benefits are about 15% lower for walking and about one third of the benefits of cycling found in the German-speaking part; the benefits found in the French-speaking part lie in between.
? Based on the annual per-capita benefit from walking, relatively small differences were found between the cities of Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Winterthur and Zurich (about CHF 3.000). For cycling, a different pattern was found with the presumably more cycling-friendly cities of Basel and Winterthur yielding twice the per-capita benefit (about CHF 800) of the cities of Geneva and Zurich, and an almost eight times higher benefit than Lausanne, where cycling is less attractive for topographical reasons.
Scenario analyses:
? A doubling of time spent cycling in Switzerland would result in an economic benefit of about CHF 2 billion per year. This would be equivalent to raising the national modal split of cycling (5.3%) to the level of the most cycling-friendly cities of Winterthur (10%) or Basel (11%).
? Increasing cycling on a national level by 10% would result in additional economic health benefits of CHF 1.5 billion per year, compared to the situation in 2005. This is within the same order of magnitude as the approximately CHF 2 billion in external health costs from air pollution or the estimated CHF 1.3 billion in transport-related costs of climate change.
If the potential to shift short motorized trips to active transport to reduce CO2 emissions (as calculated elsewhere) would be realized, an additional CHF 2 to 5 billion of economic benefits from health could be achieved in comparison to the reference scenario.
? Achieving the target of the recently adopted popular initiative to reduce motorized transport in the city of Zurich by ten percentage points within 10 years would lead to estimated annual economic benefits of CHF 40 million from the positive health effects of cycling and walking.
What conclusions can be drawn
? In Switzerland, active transport is a considerable source of physical activity and thereby already contributes significantly to the health and wellbeing of the population. Synergies with climate change, air pollution and noise protection policies are obvious.
? Economically quantifying the health benefits of active transport for the first time is contributing to a systematic and quantitative assessment of benefits in this area. This study showed that the expected economic effects from increasing active transport are substantial
? International examples show that considerable increases in active transport over time are feasible, if appropriate investments are made and maintained. In view of the substantial health benefits, significant investments into increasing active transport, for example in relation to the agglomeration programs, appear justified.