Sustainable mobility: here is the platform for calculating the costs and benefits of cycle paths

Investing in cycling infrastructure certainly pays off in terms of health. But it also pays off economically. Take Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, for example, where a 677-kilometre cycle network is planned, representing an investment of 118 million dollars and an Economic Internal Rate of Return (EIRR) of 75.7 per cent: unlike the traditional financial IRR, the EIRR assesses the overall impact on society, taking into account both monetary and non-monetary benefits and costs. The Ethiopian city is just one of the cases highlighted in the report The Case for Cycling Infrastructure Investments (World Bank, 2025), produced jointly by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and the World Bank.

The report emphasises and highlights the importance of strategic investment in cycling infrastructure to promote sustainable urban mobility and improve quality of life. In particular, it presents CyclingMAX, a unique web-based platform that enables users, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, to quickly assess the value and benefits of a planned cycling infrastructure network.

In this context, CyclingMax ‘calculates two key indicators that provide clear, quantifiable and comparable estimates of the value of the investment’. In particular, the tool calculates the Net Present Value (NPV) and the EIRR, two important metrics for cost-benefit analysis. As explained in the report, these metrics enable users to immediately understand the cost-benefit ratio of a project and to make informed decisions regarding the economic viability of the investment.

An initial shift and opening up to the world of pedal-powered transport occurred during the pandemic, when demand for mobility ‘skyrocketed and cities and governments responded by making more space on the roads, providing free access to bike-share schemes and allocating budgets to incentives for buying bicycles’, the report explains. This trend is still ongoing. ‘More and more cities around the world are keen to build cycle paths and pedestrian networks that improve access to public transport and enable low-carbon mobility,’ the study further emphasises. “However, due to chronic underestimation and underinvestment in cycling, few cities outside Northern Europe have a comprehensive network of protected cycle paths or the sustained funding required to develop and maintain cycling infrastructure on a large scale.”

Not only that, but among the other factors highlighted is the rise in car ownership, which carries a high cost in both economic and financial terms. ‘Unless this trend is reversed – according to the forecast – global transport emissions are expected to rise by 33 per cent by 2050. Meanwhile, systems based on walking, cycling and public transport are 50 per cent more cost-effective than car-centred ones.” Hence the need to support a sector that has economic, social and environmental potential. ‘The return on investment for cycling infrastructure networks is high,’ write ITDP and the World Bank, ‘both in terms of network effects arising from support for wider transport investments such as rapid transit by metro or bus, and the associated climate, health and economic benefits.’