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Traffic conflicts and their contextual factors when riding conventional vs. electric bicycles
Abstract
The prevalence of electric bicycles (e-bikes) has increased considerably in the past few years. Because of their potential to reach higher speeds than conventional bicycles, concerns have been raised about a possible increase in traffic conflicts and crashes. The goal of this study was to examine if there are differences between conventional cyclists and e-bike riders with regard to the probability to be involved in a traffic conflict. In addition, the circumstances under which conflicts occur were investigated to identify potential differences in risk dependent on contextual factors. Utilising the naturalistic cycling approach, the personal bicycles of 80 participants (31 conventional cyclists and 49 e-bike riders) were equipped with a data acquisition system that included two cameras and a speed sensor. Four weeks of “normal” cycling were recorded for each participant. The analysis showed no difference between bicycles and e-bikes with regard to their overall involvement in traffic conflicts, as well as for the role of most contextual factors. One notable exception were intersections, where the risk of being involved in a conflict was twice as high for e-bikes as for conventional bicycles. The speed immediately preceding a conflict was higher for riders of e-bikes compared to conventional bicycles, a pattern that was also found for mean speed. While the general safety concerns regarding e-bikes could not be confirmed, the finding that e-bike riders are somewhat more at risk around intersections shows that under specific circumstances, other road users might still need time to adapt to this relatively new type of vehicle.
... One notable exception was intersections, where the risk of being involved in a conflict was twice as high for e-bikes as for conventional bicycles. The speed immediately preceding a conflict was higher for riders of e-bikes compared to conventional bicycles, a pattern that was also found for mean speed (17). Motorists tend to accept smaller gaps in crossing situations in front of an oncoming e-bike compared to a bicycle approaching at the same speed (17). ...
... The speed immediately preceding a conflict was higher for riders of e-bikes compared to conventional bicycles, a pattern that was also found for mean speed (17). Motorists tend to accept smaller gaps in crossing situations in front of an oncoming e-bike compared to a bicycle approaching at the same speed (17). This effect was hypothesised to be the result of an apparent mismatch between the cyclist's actual speed and the speed perceived by the motorist. ...
... This effect was hypothesised to be the result of an apparent mismatch between the cyclist's actual speed and the speed perceived by the motorist. Given that the motorised component eases acceleration for the e-bike rider, it could be expected that mis-judgements of e-bike speed are especially prevalent at intersections, resulting in an increased number of conflicts (17). Safety attitudes had a significant negative effect on aberrant riding behaviours. ...
The Instant Delivery Service (IDS) riders' overwork by “self-pressurisation” will not only reduce the level of their physical and mental health but also lose their lives in safety accidents caused by their fatigue riding. The purpose of this article is to examine whether there is overwork among IDS riders in big and medium cities in China? What's going on with them? Based on the Cobb-Douglas production function in the input-output theory, this study characterised the factors on IDS riders' safety and health associated with labour intensity. A mediating model with moderating effect was adopted to describe the mediation path for the 2,742 IDS riders who were surveyed. The results of moderating regression demonstrated that (1) 0.4655 is the total effect of labour intensity on the safety and health of IDS riders. (2) 0.3124 is the moderating effect that working hours make a greater impact on labour intensity. (3) The mediating effect of work pressure is the principal means of mediation both upstream and downstream.
... Evaluations in the Netherlands showed that the risk of e-cyclists being injured in a road crash is higher compared to conventional cyclists [18], after controlling for age, gender and amount of bicycle use. Research findings from Sweden and Germany indicated that the chance of e-bicycle riders being involved in conflicts with other road users is higher compared to conventional bicyclists, and that the risk of being involved in a conflict increases at intersections, in the proximity of crosswalks and with an increase in riding speeds [19,20]. ...
... The study results indicated that the mean speeds of young e-bicyclists, in Israeli towns, were around 20-21 km/h on urban streets with vehicle and pedestrian traffic, and lower-about 17 km/h-on streets with pedestrian zones. These values are in the range of mean riding speeds reported by German studies of e-bicycles [20,23] but are higher than the average speeds reported in the USA [22] and in Sweden [43]. The higher values received in this study compared to the latter cases may be related to the measurement conditions, e.g., examining university campus streets in [22] versus common urban streets in the current study; estimating average riding speeds through the city in [43] versus point speed measurements in this study. ...
... The higher values received in this study compared to the latter cases may be related to the measurement conditions, e.g., examining university campus streets in [22] versus common urban streets in the current study; estimating average riding speeds through the city in [43] versus point speed measurements in this study. In general, the range of e-cyclist speeds observed in this study, with maximum values of 34-35 km/h, was close to the ranges reported by previous studies, with maximum values of 31-33 km/h [20,22,23]. Hence, the level of young e-cyclists' speeds in Israel may be judged as common and not exceptional in relation to the comparable findings abroad. ...
In Israel, a growing use of electric bicycles by youngsters has been noted, with an increase in related injuries. In this study, an observational survey was conducted on typical urban streets, aiming to characterize the riding speeds of young e-cyclists compared to regular cyclists and the associated risk factors in their behaviors. The survey covered 39 sites in eight cities, and included 1054 cyclists. The results showed that mean speeds of young e-cyclists were higher than those of regular cyclists at all types of sites, with a difference of 6–9 km/h. The mean speeds of e-bicycles were below 25 km/h, as prescribed by law, but the 85-percentile speeds were higher. E-cyclist speeds depend on the type of street, road layout and place of riding. More e-cyclists used the roadway compared to regular cyclists, however, on divided roads, more e-cyclists used sidewalks in spite of the law prohibition, thus endangering pedestrians. The majority of cyclists did not wear helmets. The unsafe behaviors of teenage e-cyclists increase the injury risk for themselves and for other road-users. Thus, separate bicycle infrastructure should be promoted in the cities. Road safety education and training of young e-cyclists with stronger enforcement of traffic regulations are also needed.
... It was reported that the specific roadway attributes such as higher road network density and the presence of intersections along the roadway are negatively influencing the usage of E2W. Accordingly, Petzoldt et al. (2017) have reported that the risk of collision for E2W users was higher at intersections under mixed traffic conditions. Similarly, the road gradient was evaluated to assess the safety of the E2W (Petzoldt et al., 2017); it was reported that under the set of similar roadway and traffic conditions, the E2W offers better ride quality compared to the conventional motorized two-wheelers (Cherry, 2007). ...
... Accordingly, Petzoldt et al. (2017) have reported that the risk of collision for E2W users was higher at intersections under mixed traffic conditions. Similarly, the road gradient was evaluated to assess the safety of the E2W (Petzoldt et al., 2017); it was reported that under the set of similar roadway and traffic conditions, the E2W offers better ride quality compared to the conventional motorized two-wheelers (Cherry, 2007). Additionally, the charging infrastructure is an important facility required for promoting the E2W (Guerra, 2019). ...
The rapid urbanization and subsequent growth of Motorized Two-wheelers (M2W) have significant negative implications on the environment through increased pollution levels in India. Replacing M2W with alternative fueled vehicles such as Electric Two-wheelers (E2W) might significantly minimize pollution. In this regard, this study has attempted to identify and prioritize the set of key E2W specific attributes based on the prospective users' perception. Initially, a comprehensive set of E2W specific attributes influencing users' perception towards E2W usage were identified from the literature. A user-perception-based questionnaire on a standard five-point Likert scale was designed to elicit prospective users' perceptions on the identified E2W attributes. Hyderabad, an Indian metropolitan city, was selected as the case study city to demonstrate the methodology. The users' perception data was then evaluated with the Meta Ranking function; it evaluates the aggregated rankings of the attributes based on the rank aggregation of the results obtained from multiple Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods. The results obtained from the analysis have revealed that among the economy-related attributes , purchase cost and operating cost are perceived as the key attributes. Similarly, range and top speed are found to be the key influencing attributes among the vehicle-related attributes. Among the infrastructure-related attributes, the charging infrastructure and the parking infrastructure were important attributes. Finally, among the user-perceived benefits related attributes, health benefits, and reduction in tailpipe emission were perceived to be significantly influencing the users. Results also indicated a significant influence of socioeconomic parameters on users' perception towards E2W attributes. Based on research findings, a set of policy interventions are proposed for devising key strategies for making E2W a more attractive mode.
... Methods to study traffic conflicts include fixed-site observation [11,[15][16][17] and naturalistic cycling studies using instrumented bicycles [18][19][20][21][22]. Fixed-site observation with a video camera offers an omniscient view on the interactions between the road users, thus allowing researchers to compute many traffic conflict indicators, such as postencroachment time (PET) and time-to-collision (TTC) [11,15,16]. ...
... Furthermore, including it as a spline allows testing if this effect is linear or not. Readers should note that slope was not controlled specifically, as was done in some collision [27] and conflict [19] studies. The terrain in Montréal is relatively flat, and geographical position is already included in the model, which should encompass some of the effect that slope could potentially have. ...
Urban cycling is increasingly common in many North American cities and has the potential to address key challenges of urban mobility, congestion, air pollution and health. However, lack of safety is often cited by potential bike users as the most important deterrent to cycling. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of cycling facility type on traffic conflict likelihood. Four participants recorded a total of 87 h (1199 km) of video, which was reviewed by trained observers to identify and characterize traffic conflicts, yielding 465 conflicts with vehicles and 209 conflicts with pedestrians. Bootstrapped generalized additive logit regressions (GAM) were built to predict traffic conflict likelihood. Results show that while cycling on an off-street bike path effectively reduces the likelihood of conflict with a vehicle, it increases the probability of conflict with a pedestrian. Bike lanes were associated with an increase in the likelihood of a conflict with a vehicle. Decision makers should favor physically segregated and clearly marked cyclist-only facilities to ensure safe and efficient conditions for commuter cyclists.
... The ATMs use urban infrastructure settings built for other road users, such as vehicles and pedestrians, and not always in accordance with traffic rules which leads to conflicts between various road users (Petzoldt et al., 2017;Gitelman et al., 2017). The use of ATMs is growing in many countries, including Israel, whereas it is accompanied by an increase in related injury (Schepers et al., 2014;Gertner Institute, 2015). ...
... Research findings from Sweden and Germany indicated that the chance of ebicycle riders to be involved in conflicts with other road users is higher compared to conventional bicyclists, particularly at intersections and near crosswalks (e.g. Petzoldt et al., 2017). Evaluations in the Netherlands showed that the risk of e-cyclists to be injured in a road accident is higher compared to conventional cyclists (Schepers et al., 2014). ...
Alternative transport means (ATMs) such as e-bicycles, electric scooters, mobility scooters (for the elderly) and segways, suggest improved mobility for individual road users, with associated benefits of reduced congestion and energy savings. However, the urban space is not adapted to incorporate these means, while ATMs use the infrastructure built for vehicles or pedestrians and are not always in accordance with traffic rules. The growing use of ATMs is accompanied by an increase in related injury. This study aimed to characterize the scope of ATM use in Israeli cities, their behaviours at typical urban locations and risk factors, and to consider solutions for safer ATMs integration into the urban space. The study data were collected by means of an observational survey at 50 representative urban intersections, in 9 city centers. Regression models were adjusted to explore the relationships between the presence of various road users. Profiles of ATM users and their behaviours were examined. The models showed a direct relation between the presence of traditional transport means and ATMs, meaning that they are used for the same destinations in the city. The e-bicycle presence was generally similar to that of regular bicycles; it was low on roadways related to vehicle traffic, but more tangible on sidewalks, related to pedestrian traffic. At sites with higher vehicle volumes, more ATMs rode on sidewalks. Among most ATM users, except for mobility scooters, children below 18 presented about a third and the majority were young adults aged 19-34. Most ATM riders did not wear helmets. The study findings indicated that the ATM volumes in the cities are not negligible and should be accounted for in planning urban facilities. For safer ATMs integration in the cities, more bicycle facilities and wider sidewalks are needed, accompanied by enforcement and publicity efforts.
... There is a strong consensus that people go faster when they ride E-bikes (Huertas-Leyva et al., 2018; Kovácsová et al., 2016;Langford, Chen, & Cherry, 2015;Petzoldt, Schleinitz, Heilmann, & Gehlert, 2017;Schleinitz, Petzoldt, Franke-Bartholdt, Krems, & Gehlert, 2017;Twisk et al., 2013;Vlakveld et al., 2015). Langford et al. (2015), who studied E-bikeshare use in a university setting in Tennessee, found that E-bike riders rode on average 3.3 kph faster than conventional bike riders. ...
... When looking at conflicts, there was consensus that E-bikes experienced more risk than conventional bikes, particularly at intersections. As part of the German Naturalistic Cycling Study, Petzoldt et al. (2017) found that conventional bike riders' risk of a conflict did not significantly increase at intersections, however the risk of conflict for E-bikes doubled at intersections. In line with this finding, Dozza, Bianchi Piccinini, and Werneke (2016) found that E-bike riders conflicted more frequently with cars, especially heavy-duty vehicles, than conventional bike riders and hypothesised this was due to drivers misperceiving the cyclists' travel speed. ...
Instrumented bikes are a critical tool to understanding cyclist behaviour and preferences to incorporate cycling into modelling, designing, and planning the transportation system. Literature using instrumented bikes for transportation-related research has increased in popularity, especially in the last 6 years. As these studies are growing in number and maturity, now seems a good time to review how the bikes have been used, choices of sensors and methodology, and where there are gaps to be filled by future work. Therefore, the objectives of this literature review are to 1) discuss sensor choice in relation to methodology, 2) review findings from topics studied using instrumented bikes, and 3) discuss gaps in the literature. Two databases were searched for transportation-based literature using instrumented bikes with a total of 75 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. The literature was organised into nine focus areas with the most common topics being E-bikes, vehicles passing cyclists, and critical events. The results show that instrumented bikes are versatile tools that can shed light on a variety of aspects of cyclist behaviour and safety as well as how to maintain the system for them. Various sensors were used for these studies, but cameras, GPS, and accelerometers were the most common. The review highlights the importance of study technique (naturalistic vs quasi-naturalistic vs other) on sensor choice with GPS and/or cameras being critical to any naturalistic study. However, GPS and cameras are the most challenging data types to work with due to difficulty and the time-consuming nature of processing the data. The variation in sensors also suggests some need to standardise set-ups for comparison of data across international contexts. Areas for future research are also discussed, including a new perspective for passing-distance studies and incorporating instrumented bikes into the connected vehicle/infrastructure space.
... Accordingly, there is a significant need to understand which dangerous situations cyclists encounter and whether cyclists can benefit from hazard anticipation training. Recent naturalistic cycling studies indicate that typical cycling hazards are cars, other cyclists, and pedestrians (Dozza et al., 2016;Dozza and Werneke, 2014;Petzoldt et al., 2017). Furthermore, road safety statistics show that about two-thirds of serious cycling crashes involve a motorized vehicle (European Commission, 2018;Gehlert et al., 2018;Schepers et al., 2017). ...
... Furthermore, road safety statistics show that about two-thirds of serious cycling crashes involve a motorized vehicle (European Commission, 2018;Gehlert et al., 2018;Schepers et al., 2017). Interactions with car drivers at intersections are regarded as particularly hazardous (Petzoldt et al., 2017). ...
... Trotz unterschiedlicher Studienqualität und Teilnehmergruppen können aus den Studien vergleichbare Schlussfolgerungen gezogen werden.Alle fünf der identifizierten Studien zeigen, dass die Durchschnittsgeschwindigkeiten von E-Bike-Fahrern über jenen der Radfahrer liegen[4,[24][25][26].Dies gilt auch für die Geschwindigkeit unmittelbar vor potenziell kritischen Situationen (sog. Konflikte)[23]. Auch der Anteil der zurückgelegten Distanzen in höheren Geschwindigkeitsbereichen fällt bei den E-Bikes grösser aus[4]. Bei bei-den Massen liegen die schnellen E-Bikes deutlich über den beiden anderen Zweiradtypen. ...
... Schleinitz sieht eine mögliche Erklärung darin, dass ältere Personen vorsichtiger fahren als jüngere[27]. In denselben Daten fand sich auch ein Geschlechtseffekt: Frauen waren im Durchschnitt signifikant langsamer unterwegs als Männer[23].Weitere Geschwindigkeitsanalysen wurden hinsichtlich Komplexität der Situation und Infrastruktur durchgeführt. Sie weisen auf reduzierte Fahrrad-und E-Bike-Geschwindigkeiten in anspruchsvollen Situationen[25] und auf Infrastrukturen mit vielen Interaktionen (bzw. ...
... In 2012, global moped sales reached 31 million, and in 2018, 47.6 million [7]. As of 2016, the number of mopeds in China reached more than 250 million and continues to increase rapidly with an annual growth rate of 9.4% [8,9]. larly, Damsere-Derry et al. analysed traffic accident data in northern Ghana and showed that further planning of traffic infrastructure is required to reduce traffic accidents associated with sharing of road space between non-motor and motorcycles [25]. ...
Mopeds (electric bicycles and light motorcycles) are commonly used as a personal transportation mode in China. However, the understanding of characteristics of left-turning mopeds at signal-controlled intersections has been relatively limited. To bridge this gap, firstly, this paper proposed a video conversion method of moped movement data acquisition. Then, a method of data accuracy verification was introduced by comparing the results between the field experiment and the video conversion method. Secondly, the ideal traffic space for left-turn mopeds from different entrances was defined to analyse the characteristics of the left-turning mopeds at intersections. Further, three indicators, namely, transverse distance, the proportion of left-turning mopeds with crossing behaviour, and the average number of avoidance behaviour, were proposed and used to analyse the asymmetrical characteristics behaviour, crossing behaviour, and avoidance behaviour. Finally, based on empirical data collected from five signal-controlled intersections, the proposed methods and behaviours were analysed. This paper provides both a valid method of obtaining the position data of mopeds and a reliable basis for improving the safety of left-turning moped riders at urban signal-controlled intersections.
... Due to the differences in the basic conditions of each country and the influence of the socio-economic level and city size, the population base and non-motorized vehicle ownership in each country are much lower than those in China [4]. At the same time, many countries have legal restrictions on the movement of non-motorized vehicles on highways. ...
The traffic flow of non-motorized vehicles on the highway segments crossing small towns is disorderly and chaotic. In order to improve the traffic environment and regulate the order of non-motorized operations, this article studies the spatial and temporal distribution and traffic flow parameters of non-motorized traffic on the highway segments crossing small towns. The non-motorized traffic within the section of the National Highway G310 crossing small towns in Henan Province, China, is investigated through various research tools such as questionnaires, interviews, and on-site statistics. The regularity and characteristics of non-motorized traffic in terms of travel purpose, travel distance, travel time, and travel frequency were obtained. Meanwhile, based on the actual collected traffic data, the speed–density relationship, flow rate–density relationship, and speed–distance relationship of non-motorized traffic flow were studied using mathematical and statistical methods. The results show that thresholds exist for both time and distance traveled by non-motorized vehicles on small town road sections. The threshold value of riding time is 30 min, and the threshold value of riding distance is 5 km. Under the free flow state, the speed distribution is near a certain desired speed, and the flow rate–density relationship conforms to the exponential function relationship when the flow rate is greater than the critical flow value. The speed and distance show a cubic function relationship, and the speed gradually increases with the increase in distance between the non-motorized vehicles and towns. Based on the results of the above analysis, it is possible to grasp the travel regularity of non-motorized cyclists on highway segments crossing small towns. This provides a theoretical basis for enhancing the efficiency of non-motorized travel and improving the non-motorized travel environment.
... When cycling on the road, e-bikers have reported feeling safer and more confident than with conventional bicycles due to their ability to keep up with the flow of motor traffic and accelerate more quickly from a stop or traffic light (Jones et al., 2016;Popovich et al., 2014). Conversely, e-bikers have said they feel unsafe when approaching intersections because they fear motorists might underestimate their speed (Jones et al., 2016;Popovich et al., 2014), leading to potential crashes (Petzoldt et al., 2017). ...
Electrically-assisted bicycles (E-bikes) may broaden cycling to a wider spectrum of users, territories, and trips. But what are e-bike users’ experiences of safety in a low-cycling city, and how do they vary among different users? This paper conceptualizes perceived safety based on vélomobility as the meeting point between users with specific characteristics (age, gender, etc.) and an environment more or less amenable to cycling. It is based on data from a survey of 1260 e-bike users who received a subsidy in Lausanne, Switzerland. We use 13 variables to measure perceived safety, finding 3 components: comfort for cycling in different situations, satisfaction with cycling conditions, and barriers to e-bike use. Based on these components, we identify four groups of e-bike users: (1) confident all-rounders, (2) recreational on-roaders, (3) worried traffic-avoiders and (4) unconfident path-users. We find gender and age to be the main factors associated with being a member of a group with lower perceived safety. Low weekly frequency of e-bike use, reduced winter e-bike use, and cycling for recreational trips exclusively also reduce perceived safety. Despite the benefits of electrical assistance compared to conventional bicycles, low safety due to unwelcoming road conditions remains a major concern for many e-bike users.
... The question remains open as to whether e-bikers are intrinsically more prone to accidents than conventional cyclists. Accidents may be linked to e-bikes' characteristics (higher weight and speed, more frequent use), but also to the riders (older, lower experience) or to motorists who underestimate e-bikers' speed (Petzoldt et al. 2017). Not much attention has been given to perceived safety but some accounts suggest that e-bike users feel more confident due to the ability to keep up with the flow of motor tra c and accelerate quickly from a stop (Jones, Harms, et al. 2016;Popovich et al. 2014;Rose 2012). ...
... Which means, that in such situation, for possible accident situation, is responsible the human factor, that is in a concrete case, the bicyclist. It can be said, that the bicyclists are prone to disrespect and violation of traffic signalisation and restrictions at the intersections (disrespect of the speed limit), as well as traffic regulations, and to the same conclusion have come Petzoldt et al. (2017) and Langford et al. (2015). ...
In the world of computers, that is, by application of modern tools to determine and represent the visual field, of the heavy-duty vehicles driver in the virtual environment, the real investigations can be successfully replaced with the virtual ones. Demands which one vehicle must to satisfy during the projecting phase are: comfort, visibility, easy manoeuvrability, esthetical demands and similar. One very important demand from the aspect of the safety of all traffic participants and reliability of all systems on the vehicle is the good visibility around the vehicle, which investigation is the aim of this paper. The purpose of this paper is the analysis of everyday situation of truck driver at the intersection, in the virtual reality, as well as the analysis of causes which lead to the traffic accident. The main aim of the paper is to determine do a truck driver sees the vulnerable group of traffic participants depending from their mutual position, by application of RAMSIS software. By application of the virtual reality, the main finding of this study, is that the truck driver in some situations cannot see the vulnerable group of traffic participants. The originality of this study bases on the investigation, do a truck driver sees the electric scooter driver, and the idea for such research have come on the basis of everyday situations, because the electric scooters are more and more present on streets.
Graphical Abstract
... Aiming to construct intervention programs that are specific for e-bike riding, the movie footage depicted real-world traffic scenes taken from an e-bike rider's perspective and illustrating a variety hazard types and traffic environments that users would typically encounter, thereby presenting the e-bike rider's experience of riding fast and accelerating fast [18,87] on designated cycling routes, traffic roads, and pavement. This is in line with previous research indicating that these riders use a mixture of urban facilities and switch between different road layouts [27] in a manner that increases their risk of being involved in conflicts with other road users as compared to mechanical bicycle users, mainly at intersections and near crosswalks [88]. Hazard situations consisted of dynamic (moving automobiles, pedestrians, motorcycles, and buses) as well as static (junctions, curves, vegetation, and other types of restricted field of view) instigators. ...
Although hazard perception is an important skill found to be crucial for negotiating traffic among various types of road users, few studies have systematically investigated e-bike riders’ ability to perceive potential unmaterialized hazardous situations or aimed to enhance these abilities through training. The present study explored the formation of two hazard perception training interventions based upon exposing young complete-novice e-bike riders to a vast array of materialized traffic hazards, with the aim of evaluating their effectiveness in enriching the ability to anticipate unmaterialized hazards. Young complete-novice e-bike riders were allocated into one of two intervention modes (‘Act and Anticipate Training’ or ‘Predictive and Commentary Training’) or a control group (ten in each group). AAT members underwent a theoretical tutorial, then observed clips depicting real-time hazardous situations footage taken from an e-bike rider’s perspective and were asked to perform a hazard detection task. PCT members underwent a theoretical tutorial, then a ‘what might happen next?’ task, followed by observation of video footage with expert commentary. A week later, participants were requested to complete a hazard perception test, during which they viewed ten videos and pressed a response button whenever they identified a hazardous situation. Overall, participants in both interventions were more aware of potential unmaterialized hazards compared to the control in both their response sensitivity and verbal descriptions. Trainees were responsive to the developed training interventions. Thus, actively detecting materialized hazards may produce effective training that enriches these road users’ hazard perception skills and allows them to safely negotiate traffic. Advantages of each of the training methodologies along with implications for intervention strategies, licensing, and policy development are discussed.
... Therefore, evaluating the E2W infrastructure-specific attributes such as gradient, type of road, pavement quality, etc., would help in making the existing roads more E2W friendly. The risk of collision of E2W users was found to be higher at intersections (Petzoldt, Schleinitz, Heilmann, & Gehlert, 2017). Hence, user perception towards specific infrastructure requirements is important to analyze. ...
The promotion of electric vehicles is regarded as a critical aspect of government policy to transition towards a greener mobility system to reduce the pollution load from vehicular emission and deal with the challenges associated with future energy security for the transport sector. Motorized two-wheelers (M2W) are the popular means of personal mobility, and are accounting for nearly 32% of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions in India. In this regard, replacing existing M2W with alternative fuelled vehicles such as the Electric Two-Wheelers (E2W) could significantly minimize the negative implications associated with the usage of M2W. Therefore, this study has attempted to identify and prioritize the key E2W specific attributes to propose necessary policy-level interventions for projecting E2W as an attractive alternative. Initially, an exhaustive set of twenty-three attributes influencing E2W-usage were identified from the literature. Subsequently, experts' opinions and users' perceptions on the importance of the identified attributes were captured and analyzed using appropriate Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to analyze experts' opinions. The RIDIT (Relative to an Identified Distribution and Transformation) method was used to analyze users' perceptions. Finally, both sets of results are compared and combined to derive key E2W specific attributes based on their perceived importance by experts and users. Results indicate that the following attributes, namely, purchase cost and operation cost (Economy-related), range, top speed, battery-charging duration, and acceleration (Vehicle and battery-related), health benefits and reduction in tailpipe emission (User-perceived benefit-related), and charging infrastructure, and parking infrastructure (Transport infrastructure-related) are perceived as the key attributes influencing E2W in the typical Indian context. Based on the results, it is recommended that E2W with a longer range, higher speed, and faster acceleration rate could be promoted as a sustainable alternative to conventional M2W. The provision of adequate charging and parking infrastructure was critical for E2W usage in the Indian context.
... Safety assessment is also important in micro-mobility such as electric bicycles (e-bikes); despite the use of helmets, electric scooters have increased the probability of human injury in crash events [23]. Brain injuries can incur from impact between the rider with the windshield or with the ground [19]. ...
Nonlinear analysis has been applied to evaluate passive safety systems. It is based on the mechanical responses of the car structure and loads generated in the occupants as well
as pedestrians. These responses are evaluated to design the car structure to manage and prevent the transmission of impact energy and as a passive element to absorb it and dissipate it. Human responses are evaluated through biomechanical assessment to identify and reduce human injury. Small electric cars have been introduced to reduce pollution, and although they have an environmental advantage, the battery can explode
if the structure of the car body does not manage the deformation energy well. Due to their maximum velocity, the small electric cars can be introduced in some regions without analysing their crashworthiness behaviour. In this work, it is proposed to evaluate the nonlinear response of a mechanical bump shock absorber using a neural network, to predict its behaviour as an alternative tool to perform nonlinear initial evaluation, because
there is human injury at low velocities. A combination of deceleration level and its time duration is necessary to evaluate the injury at low velocities. A dynamic neural network has been used to predict the deceleration, kinetic energy and deformation responses of a mechanical bump shock absorber. The methodology can be used by original equipment manufacturers, startups, suppliers and companies related to mobility and micromobility to perform safety assessments.
... These violations are often caused by low traffic safety awareness [5], among which running the red light is the leading cause of e-bike accidents [6,7]. Previous research points out that e-bikers run a red light more frequently than traditional bicycle riders [8], and e-bikes are faster than bicycles before collisions, with a higher risk ratio at intersections [9]. ...
The application of facial recognition technology (FRT) can effectively reduce the red-light running behavior of e-bikers. However, the privacy issues involved in FRT have also attracted widespread attention from society. This research aims to explore the public and the traffic police's attitudes toward FRT to optimize the use and implementation of FRT. A structured questionnaire survey of 270 people and 94 traffic police in Fuzhou, China, was used. In the study, we use several methods to analyze the investigation data, including the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test and Multiple Correspondence Analysis. The survey results indicate that the application of FRT has a significant effect on reducing red-light running behavior. The public’s educational level and driving license status are the most influential factors related to their attitudes to FRT (p < 0.001). The public with these attributes shows more supportive attitudes to FRT and more concerns about privacy invasion. Besides, there are significant differences between the public and the traffic police in attitudes toward FRT (p < 0.001). Compared with the public, the traffic police officers had more supportive attitudes to FRT. This research contributes to promoting the application of FRT legitimately and alleviating people's concerns about the technology.
... Therefore, other road users are at times surprised by the speed at which (older) e-cyclists approach them because low cadence generally indicates low effort and, as a result, a low riding speed (Haustein and Møller, 2016;Schleinitz et al., 2016). In turn, this may lead to underestimating the speed of e-bicycle riders (Petzoldt et al., 2017b). Particularly at locations where people are under time pressure to make decisions (e.g., intersections), it is important that the speed of all types of road users, including older e-cyclists, are estimated as close as possible to their true speeds because this enables road users to maintain adequate safety margins and choose safer (larger) gaps (Dozza et al., 2016;Petzoldt et al., 2017a). ...
... The growth in the total number of bicycles is reflected in an increase in the number of accidents involving cyclists (+3.3% between 2018 and 2019 (2019 Annual Report on Accidents in Italy by ISTAT, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica)): this shows that fatal events involving cyclists represent approximately 8.5% of the total accidents; the replacement of traditional bikes with the electric alternative inevitably leads to a multiplication of accident cases in which the latter type of vehicle is involved. Nevertheless, specific data on e-bikes-related accidents are limited: in Italy, as an adaptation to the European Regulation 168/2013 (REGULATION (EU) No 168/2013 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the approval and market surveillance of two-or three-wheel vehicles and quadricycles), there is a strong tendency to equate ebikes with traditional bicycles; however, the scientific literature has shown that several elements distinguish these vehicles in terms of accident involvement and also in terms of the obvious differences in travel speed, which emphasize the incorrect and risky behaviour of riders [6][7][8]. From other countries such as China, more specific information has been collected, indicating that 10% of accidents involving e-bike cyclists are associated with fatal outcomes [9]. As far as e-scooters are concerned, accident and market penetration data are not currently available in Europe because of a traffic regulation activated in 2019 (and only in specific countries such as Italy, Germany and France). ...
(1) Background: Electric micro-mobility vehicles (i.e., e-bikes and e-scooters) represent a fast-growing portion of the circulating fleet, leading to a multiplication of accident cases also attributable to risky behaviours adopted by the riders. Still, data on vehicle performance and rider behaviour are sparse and difficult to interpret (if not unavailable). Information regarding the overall accident dynamics can, however, aid in identifying users’ risky riding behaviour that actually led to a harmful event, allowing one to propose efficient strategies and policies to reduce the occurrence of road criticalities. (2) Methods: Speed and acceleration data of six cyclists of traditional and electric bikes were extracted from six closed-circuit experiments and real road tests performed in the city of Florence (Italy) to derive their behavioural patterns in diverse road contexts. (3) Results: The application of analysis of variance and linear regression procedures to such data highlights differences between men and women in terms of performance/behaviour in standing start; additionally, the use of e-bikes favours a higher speed ride in correspondence to roundabouts and roads with/without the right of way. To thoroughly assess the rider’s responsibilities in an eventual accident, an ancillary procedure was highlighted to evaluate whether a micro-mobility vehicle complies with the applicable regulations. (4) Conclusion: With these results, the prospective recognition of rider behaviour was facilitated during the investigation process, and the abilities to extract such relevant information from in-depth accident data wereconsequently enhanced.
... Therefore, other road users are at times surprised by the speed at which (older) e-cyclists approach them because low cadence generally indicates low effort and, as a result, a low riding speed (Haustein and Møller, 2016;Schleinitz et al., 2016). In turn, this may lead to underestimating the speed of e-bicycle riders (Petzoldt et al., 2017b). Particularly at locations where people are under time pressure to make decisions (e.g., intersections), it is important that the speed of all types of road users, including older e-cyclists, are estimated as close as possible to their true speeds because this enables road users to maintain adequate safety margins and choose safer (larger) gaps (Dozza et al., 2016;Petzoldt et al., 2017a). ...
... Among the studies using instrumented bicycles, there are usually five types: (1) studies on e-bikes to compare electric and traditional bicycles, in terms of speed, acceleration, and deceleration [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], (2) studies on cyclists' exposure to air pollution and noise exposure [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17], (3) studies on cyclist conflicts [18][19][20][21][22][23], (4) studies on vehicle detection when encountered met during trips [24][25][26], and finally, (5) studies on lateral passing distance by motorized vehicles [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. ...
During the last decade, bicycles equipped with sensors became an essential tool for research, particularly for studies analyzing the lateral passing distance between motorized vehicles and bicycles. The objective of this article is to describe a low-cost open-source sensor called one metre plus (1m+) capable of measuring lateral passing distance, registering the geographical position of the cyclist, and video-recording the trip. The plans, codes, and schematic design are open and therefore easily accessible for the scientific community. This study describes in detail the conceptualization process, the characteristics of the device, and the materials from which they are made. The study also provides an evaluation of the product and describes the sensor’s functionalities and its field of application. The objective of this project is to democratize research and develop a platform/participative project that offers tools to researchers worldwide, in order to standardize knowledge sharing and facilitate the comparability of results in various contexts.
... Wei et al. [8] reported that the higher the speed of an e-bike, the greater the transverse distance required. In addition, Tibor et al. [9] found that e-bikes had twice the risk of being involved in traffic accidents in intersections as compared with conventional bikes. According to [10], the number of e-bike accidents in Jiangsu Province accounted for about 70% of the total traffic accidents from January to June in 2016, especially near irregular intersections. ...
The deviations of straight-going traffic at irregular signalized intersections lead to obvious expansion characteristics of e-bikes. This situation increases the possibility of collisions between motor vehicles and e-bikes. In order to study the change of expansion degree of straight-going e-bike at irregular signalized intersections, the video trajectory extraction technology is used to obtain relevant data of e-bikes during green light release periods at irregular signalized intersections. In addition, we combined the flow and spacing characteristics of e-bikes and used a clustering method to analyze the release stage and release groups. Therefore, the Group 1 of e-bikes in the early green light release was determined to be the main research object of expansion degree. According to the static and dynamic factors, a prediction model for the expansion degree of straight-going e-bikes at irregular signalized intersections was established based on the beetle antennae search–back propagation (BAS-BP) neural network model. Finally, the evaluation indexes were compared and analyzed before and after the beetle antennae search (BAS) algorithm optimization. The results showed that the BAS-BP neural network prediction model was better than that of the back propagation (BP) neural network. The results could provide a theoretical reference for improving the efficiency of mixed traffic flow at irregular signalized intersections.
... They also calculated the ORs for the different conflict partners, locations, and some circumstances. Petzoldt et al. (2017a) did the same in Germany with conventional bicycles and pedelecs. They also analysed the manoeuvres of those involved in the conflicts, such as crossing and approaching from opposite or same directions. ...
Speed-pedelecs -fast electric bicycles offering pedal support up to a speed of 45 km/h- are a recent, environmentally friendly, and mobility efficient innovation. However, their high travel speed may increase crash and injury risk. Due to their recent introduction accurate crash data are not available yet. Since near-crashes may serve as a proxy for crashes this study analyzed traffic conflicts (i.e., near-crashes and minor crashes) in the Netherlands with the aim to proactively identify potential crash partners, crash patterns, and crash risk increasing factors. To this end, twenty-eight participants used a speed-pedelec in daily traffic, equipped with a forward and a backward facing camera, for two to three consecutive weeks. In a total of 227 h of video footage in which a distance of 6584 km was travelled, 115 conflicts were identified of which 114 were near-crashes in which evasive actions were performed to avert a crash, and one was a minor crash. The most frequent conflict partner were bicycles (51 %), followed successively by cars and vans (28 %), pedestrians (12 %), powered two-wheelers (5 %) and animals (3 %). One conflict was with a truck. With conventional bicycles, most conflicts occurred in crossing maneuvers (36 %) and when the speed-pedelec and bicycle were travelling in the same direction (36 %). Also, with cars and vans, most conflicts occurred in crossing maneuvers (63 %). The case-cohort analyses in which characteristics in conflicts and characteristics in randomly selected moments of the same participant were identified, showed conflict risks to be high if: (1) bicycles or cars were in the proximity of the speed-pedelec but was substantially higher for bicycles than for cars (OR = 43.28, 95 % CI = [16.85−111.17] and OR = 22.43, 95 % CI = [7.59−66.28] respectively), (2) speed-pedelecs overtook other road users which were mostly bicycles (OR = 17.25, 95 % CI = [7.58−39.24]), (3) the speed-pedelecs travelled on bicycle facilities (both legally or illegally) (OR = 1.81, 95 % CI = [1.08−3.03]), and (4) speed-pedelecs rode near or at an intersection, OR = 3.94, 95 % CI = [2.42−6.43]. These findings suggest that conflict risks are higher when speed-pedelec riders make use of bicycle facilities than when they ride on the roadway for cars. However, the consequences of crashes with motorized vehicles on the roadway will probably be more severe for speed-pedelec riders than with bicycles on the cycle path. This study further illustrates the value of naturalistic conflict observations for assessing the safety implications of innovations proactively.
... For example, Ma et al. [22] accumulated the overlapped trajectories among different traffic participants at an unsignalized intersection, and developed a heatmap to show the location and severity of potential conflicts. Petzoldt et al. [23] gathered the e-bike trajectories and camera views during traffic conflicts, and described the potentially influencing contextual factors. These descriptive methods provided an intuitional understanding to the conflicts, but could not reveal the conflict mechanism explicitly. ...
The tremendous growing ownership of electric bikes (e-bikes) brings serious traffic safety problems. Existing models aim to describe the conflict between pairwise traffic participants, which may not be appropriate for analyzing traffic conflicts among multiple e-bikes. This study aimed to model the trajectory changes for e-bikes in conflict scenarios, and simulate the e-bike movements during conflicts. First, the conflict zone of e-bike is represented as an isosceles triangle, within which the e-bikes would either adapt a lateral (right or left) shift in its trajectory or slow down to avoid potential collisions. Second, the kinematic principles of the classical optimal velocity model were employed to solve the overlapping problem of the cyclist reactions to the multiple conflictive e-bikes. Finally, the model was calibrated with trajectory data collected from video surveillance, and two types of numerical simulations were carried out. The experiment results verified the model performance of simulating the conflictive e-bike trajectories with multiple e-bike involved conflicts. It is also found that the unique typical phenomena of e-bikes such as the diagonal spatial distributions can be reproduced. It is hoped that the findings of this study may be helpful in modeling and simulation study of e-bike flow.
... Although surveys raise questions about representation, at the moment and with limited funding for active travel research, they continue to be a common choice for researchers (Huemer, 2018;Lahrmann et al., 2018). More in-depth studies of individual behaviours such as naturalistic observations (equipping bicycles with cameras (Hamann and Peek-Asa, 2017;Zangenehpour et al., 2016) and sensors (Dozza and Fernandez, 2014;Johnson et al., 2010) to record user behaviours in a way that does not affect the natural development of that behaviour) are gaining popularity as actual crash data for vehicles other than cars is rarely available (Petzoldt et al., 2017). Alternatively, crowdsourced data, for example, from Strava Metro, has been increasingly used by researches and even policymakers to localize and understand general trends in cycling, although it is still in development and issues about representativity in terms of class have been raised (Chen et al., 2017;Jestico et al., 2017). ...
While there has been sustained growth in cycling as an urban mean of transport over the last two decades, it has often been accompanied by an increase in traffic crashes and deaths involving cyclists (Broe et al., 2017; Loreta et al., 2016). Many of the recommendations proposed to reduce such negative consequences rely primarily on individual behavioural changes or segregating infrastructure; however, the positive impacts of such actions are not yet proven (Dozza, 2017; Shinar et al., 2018). While these actions are certainly necessary, it has been proposed that more collective and long-standing changes in policy, education and law can be even more beneficial for cycling safety (Jacobsen, 2003; Marqués and Hernández-Herrador, 2017). Research considering social, spatial and economic disparities and their relation to urban cycling is very scarce within cycling studies and has the potential to benefit cycling safety by expanding its underlying understanding (Brown, 2016). Additionally, qualitative approaches such as the analysis of media representations of cycling safety events have only recently started attracting attention from researchers (Macmillan et al., 2016). Furthermore, there is a clear disproportion between research about cycling safety undertaken in Europe, Oceania and North America when compared to the rest of the world – in particular, Latin America. While debates around transport and inequalities are prevalent in Latin American cities, limited attention has been paid to cycling. In this study, through the analysis of secondary data and media coverage of traffic crashes involving cyclists in Bogotá, Colombia, it is proposed that cycling safety research can benefit from including analysis of social, economic and spatial inequalities as well as media representation. Preliminary results show that spatial inequality in cycling safety is expressed in at least three ways: disparities in cycling infrastructure allocation by city planners; concentration of traffic crashes resulting in cyclists' deaths in low income areas; and disproportion in media coverage of cyclists' deaths in traffic according to their locations.
... Moreover, after correction for riders' age, gender, and bike use frequency, e-bike riders were more likely to be involved in a serious traffic accident. Petzoldt et al. [36] studied the differences between ordinary bikes and e-bikes in traffic conflicts through 80 volunteers. Insignificant differences were reported between the two, but at the intersections, the number of traffic conflicts involving e-bikes was twice that of ordinary bikes. ...
This study aimed to reveal the potential relationship between personal characteristics of e-bike riders and illegal occupation of motor vehicle lane. To this end, a questionnaire survey was conducted and 350 valid copies of responses were retrieved from the e-bike riders. Depending on the number of motor vehicle lanes occupied, the risky behavior of illegal occupation was divided into four intervals: intervals A, B, C, and D. The disaggregate theory has high adaptability to the analysis of individual traffic behavior. In this study, the multinomial logit model was used, and eight personal characteristics of e-bike riders were selected. The aforementioned four intervals were the four selection limbs, and a measurement model calculating the influence of personal characteristics on the behavior of illegal occupation was built. The theory of elasticity was employed to analyze the sensitivity degree of each influence factor. The results showed that the absolute values of elasticity of all tested influence factors, including age, educational level, and eye vision, were less than 1.000. However, on the four intervals, the elasticity of riders’ temperament was 1.203, 1.656, 1.554, and 1.355, respectively, and elasticity of riding proficiency was 2.782, 3.883, 3.453, and 2.932, respectively.
... However, with the increase in traffic volumes for both vehicles and electric bicycles, due to traffic conflicts between these two modes, various urban traffic problems are rising, such as traffic safety, traffic congestion, and parking problems. Recently, extensive research efforts were devoted to address the multiple research needs related to E-bikes, such as estimating cycling capacity, the bicycle equivalent unit for E-bikes, consumption behavior of E-bikes users, and characteristics of traffic accident involving E-bikes [5][6][7]. Existing research generally studied the operational characteristics of E-bike from the micro level, such as operations on links or intersections. However, as an important commute mode, few studies investigated the corresponding mode choice and route choice behaviors, which play important roles in designing management strategies and operational decisions related to E-bikes to alleviate the above traffic problems at the traffic-network level. ...
The popularity of electric bicycles in China makes them a common transportation mode for people to commute and move around. However, with the increase in traffic volumes for both vehicles and electric bicycles, urban traffic safety and congestion problems are rising due to traffic conflicts between these two modes. To regulate travel behavior, it is essential to analyze the mode choice and route choice behaviors of travelers. This study proposes a combined modal split and multiclass traffic user equilibrium model formulated as a complementarity problem (CP) to simultaneously characterize the mode choice behavior and route choice behavior of both vehicle and electric bicycle users. This model captures the impacts of route travel time and out-of-pocket cost on travelers’ route choice behaviors. Further, modified Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) functions are developed to model the travel times of links with and without physical separation between vehicle lanes and bicycle lanes. This study also analyzes the conditions for uniqueness of the equilibrium solution. A Newton method is developed to solve the proposed model. Numerical examples with different scales are used to validate the proposed model. The results show that electric bicycles are more favored by travelers during times of high network congestion. In addition, total system travel time can be reduced significantly through physical separation of vehicle lanes from electric bicycle lanes to minimize their mutual interference.
... They surveyed emergency departments at hospitals and investigated cyclists who had a traffic accident and found that the severity of e-bike accidents is much greater than that of bicycle accidents, and after limiting the age, gender, and bicycle usage of riders, e-bike riders are more likely to become involved in more serious traffic accidents. Tibor Petzoldt et al. [14] studied the differences between bicycles and e-bikes in traffic conflicts by collecting data from 80 volunteers. They found that, on the whole, there is no difference between the two in traffic conflicts, but at intersections, traffic conflicts on e-bikes are twice as numerous as those on bicycles, the riding speed of e-bikes is higher than that of bicycles when these conflicts occur, and e-bikes are more likely to be involved in a traffic accident. ...
To examine the relationship between electric bike riders' individual characteristics and their riding speed, this paper obtained 350 valid survey responses from e-bike riders using an on-site sampling survey method. Using the non-aggregate theory, we take the individual attributes of the rider's age, driving age, personality, and corrective vision as potential influencing factors. The metric model of the influencing factors of the rider's personal characteristics on riding speed is established, and we analyze the sensitivity of many influencing factors by using the theory of elasticity. The results show that the absolute value of the elasticity value corresponding to the rider's gender, age, corrected visual acuity, and other factors is less than 1, which indicates that the above factors have no flexibility regarding the rider's riding speed selection behavior. However, in four selection intervals, the elasticity values of the rider's education level are 1.577, 2.484, 1.810, and 1.667; those of their driving age are −1.537, −2.061, −1.547, and −1.606, and those of their riding proficiency are 3.302, 12.038, 10.370, and 11.177, which indicate that the three factors of rider's education level, driving age, and riding proficiency have a significant impact on the riding speed choice behavior. The finding of the study is helpful for the relevant government departments to formulate more accurate classified intervention measures, and effectively prevent the occurrence of illegal speeding behavior.
... As several studies have shown that e-bikes are indeed used at higher speeds levels than conventional bicycles (Huertas-Leyva et al. 2018; Vlakveld et al. 2015), a unique appearance might therefore not be fully sufficient to counter a potential increase in crash risk for e-bikes. Compared to conventional cyclists, e-bike riders were found to be especially at higher risk of safety critical situations at intersections (Dozza et al. 2016), e.g., when car drivers did not did not yield right-of-way to an e-bike (Petzoldt et al. 2017a;Schleinitz et al. 2014), presumably because they underestimated the e-bike's speed. A unique appearance alone might not be enough to fully eradicate this type of conflict. ...
Objective: Car drivers tend to underestimate the speed of e-bikes and accept smaller gaps for crossing in front of them compared to conventional bicycles. As an explanation, it has been suggested that car drivers rely on their previous experience with conventional bicycles, which tells them that those mostly travel at low speeds. E-bikes, which look just like regular bicycles, do not conform to this expectation, resulting in potentially dangerous interactions. Based on this assumption, researchers have suggested to increase other road users’ awareness of e-bikes’ higher speeds by giving them a distinct appearance. The goal of our experiment was to investigate the effects of such a unique appearance, aided by clear instructions about the higher speeds of e-bikes, on gap acceptance.
Method: In order to investigate the effect of appearance independent of the effect of bicycle type, we used video sequences of conventional bicycles and e-bikes approaching at different levels of speed. The riders (regardless of what type of bike they were actually riding) either wore an orange helmet as an indicator for an e-bike, or a gray helmet indicating a conventional bicycle. Fifty participants were asked to indicate the smallest acceptable gap for a left turn in front of the cyclist or e-bike rider.
Results: The results showed significantly smaller acceptable gaps when confronted with the gray helmet (signal for bicycle) compared to the orange helmet (signal for e-bike), whereas there was no difference between the actual bicycle types.
Conclusions: Overall, the results indicate that informing about e-bikes characteristics in combination with a unique appearance can lead to a more cautious behavior among car drivers.
... A study implemented in China indicated that male and aggressive riders were more likely to increase riding risk [10]. Petzoldt et al. claimed that riding e-bikes at a high speed can induce a higher crash risk [11]. Du proved that unregulated riding behavior and riding without a helmet are prone to increase riding risk [12]. ...
In this paper, the risk pattern of e-bike riders in China was examined, based on tree-structured machine learning techniques. Three-year crash/violation data were acquired from the Kunshan traffic police department, China. Firstly, high-risk (HR) electric bicycle (e-bike) riders were defined as those with at-fault crash involvement, while others (i.e. non-at-fault or without crash involvement) were considered as non-high-risk (NHR) riders, based on quasi-induced exposure theory. Then, for e-bike riders, their demographics and previous violation-related features were developed based on the crash/violation records. After that, a systematic machine learning (ML) framework was proposed so as to capture the complex risk patterns of those e-bike riders. An ensemble sampling method was selected to deal with the imbalanced datasets. Four tree-structured machine learning methods were compared, and a gradient boost decision tree (GBDT) appeared to be the best. The feature importance and partial dependence were further examined. Interesting findings include the following: (1) tree-structured ML models are able to capture complex risk patterns and interpret them properly; (2) spatial-temporal violation features were found as important indicators of high-risk e-bike riders; and (3) violation behavior features appeared to be more effective than violation punishment-related features, in terms of identifying high-risk e-bike riders. In general, the proposed ML framework is able to identify the complex crash risk pattern of e-bike riders. This paper provides useful insights for policy-makers and traffic practitioners regarding e-bike safety improvement in China.
Conventionally, public transportation has been the responsibility of the government. In developing countries, however, government-provided public transportation is often inadequate: people’s mobility needs are best met by private modes, such as shared auto-rickshaws. In India, auto-rickshaws serve as a popular last-mile transportation alternative as well as a public transportation substitute. The mode share of auto-rickshaws in major Indian cities is significant. Electrifying this mode will certainly result in a significant reduction in air pollution levels. It is therefore imperative to identify the factors which influence rickshaw operators (ROs)’ willingness to adopt battery-operated rickshaws (BORs) in India. The present study aims to identify and explore the factors that contribute to the adaptability of battery electric vehicles in India and measure the satisfaction level of ROs with the selected factors. By using structural equation modeling, the present research found that, from the viewpoint of 478 ROs, vehicle-related attributes and economy-related attributes are most influential on the adaptability of BORs. Furthermore, the one-way analysis of variance revealed that willingness to adopt BORs is significantly related to the age of the ROs. From the standpoint of government, as well as electric vehicle manufacturers, this study would be helpful in understanding the tastes, expectations, and needs of ROs if they adopt BORs.
Bicycles with integrated electric motors that require user effort, that is, pedal-assist e-bikes (PAEB), are increasing in popularity. There are several significant health benefits and benefits to our environment that can be attained by increasing use of PAEB. The purpose of this review was to synthesize the literature available on PAEB and to identify future directions for research, and policy and infrastructure development, that ensures an inclusive approach. We conducted a scoping review of the literature that led to the identification of 107 articles that included PAEB. Studies were grouped according to themes: Energy and Emissions, Bike Sharing, Violations and Accidents, Physical Activity, Active Commuting, and Perceptions. Overall, it appears that the uptake of PAEB leads to a modal shift such that overall car use is decreased. PAEB use is associated with lower emissions compared to cars, but requires physical effort that classifies use of a PAEB as moderate intensity physical activity. Cost appears to be prohibitive, thus sharing or rental programs, and subsidies may be beneficial. Several additional barriers related to lack of infrastructure were also noted. Importantly, violations, injuries, and crashes appear to be similar between PAEB users and traditional bicycle users. PAEB offer an opportunity to improve health and mobility in an eco-friendly manner compared to cars. Infrastructure and policies are needed to support this modal shift. There is an immediate need to clearly define PAEBs, and to ensure regulations are similar between PAEB and traditional bicycles. Future research is needed to better understand long-term behaviour change with regards to commuting, and to identify the effect of implementing better infrastructure and policies on PAEB uptake.
An on-bike warning system has great potential to increase safety of cyclists. For an effective warning system, the implementation of warning signals is fundamental. However, more knowledge about the cyclist specific design of warnings and the influence of warnings on the cyclist is needed. To analyze the benefit of warnings in conflicts and the reaction pattern of cyclists we conducted a test-track experiment. We evaluated the data of 62 participants who were divided into three warning groups (between-subjects) and encountered different situations (within-subjects). The warning groups either received acoustic, vibro-tactile or no warnings. The situation variable consisted of three conflicts and two false warnings in the groups with warnings.
We measured significantly shorter reaction times of persons who received acoustic and vibro-tactile warnings compared to the persons without warning. Furthermore, acoustic warnings led to shorter reaction times compared to vibro-tactile warnings. The reaction pattern was described by different bicycle dynamics variables. It was mostly influenced by the situation and rarely by the warning group. Based on the velocity curves and reaction times we identified learning effects describing how the warned participants adopted the warning system over the five situations.
These findings indicate that a warning system offers great safety benefits to cyclists. Based on the current results, acoustic warnings are recommended when an urgent reaction is required.
This Special Issue on Future Transportation falls in the scope of the current effort to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate. It is launched with the aim of collecting and promoting recent scientific studies proposing and evaluating advances in technologies leading to the sustainable future transportation of people and goods. It mainly addresses the policy makers, entrepreneurs and academicians engaged in the fight against climate change by tackling the main contributors of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A special thanks is addressed to the authors who submitted their manuscripts to contribute to this initiative. We acknowledge the funders who financially assisted the authors to conduct their research, and we also thank the reviewers and editors who contributed to
the evaluation of the scientific quality of the submitted manuscripts.
E-bikes provide a potential for improving sustainable urban mobility. However, there are concerns of e-cycling related injury. In this study, observational surveys of e-bikes were conducted in Israeli cities to explore their presence and safety-related behaviours, at typical urban settings. The results showed that e-bike presence in urban traffic was similar to that of regular bicycles. Mean speeds of e-cyclists were higher than those of regular cyclists, by 5 km/h, on average, but were lower on sidewalks. E-bikes moved slower than vehicles on roadways but were faster than pedestrians on sidewalks. At intersections, 20% of e-cyclists crossed on red. In general, the study showed a mixed use of urban facilities by e-bikes, with heterogeneous traffic both on vehicle and pedestrian settings and multiple risk factors. For a safer integration of e-bikes in Israeli cities, a wider application of cycling infrastructure, with separation from sidewalks and roadways, is needed.
E-bicycles (or e-bikes) provide a convenient form of mobility in urban areas, with a potential for improving the sustainability of urban transport. However, there is a growing concern of e-bike injury whilst urban space may not yet be adapted for e-cycling. When cycling infrastructure is absent, e-bikes should travel in mixed vehicle traffic but may prefer pedestrian facilities, while both alternatives increase injury risk for various road users. Previous research findings on e-cyclist behaviours were not uniform across countries. In this study, observational surveys of adult e-cyclists were undertaken in Israeli cities aiming to characterize their typical behaviours, in various urban settings. Three surveys were conducted: traffic counting, speed measurements and video-recordings. The counting took place at urban intersections, to estimate the extent of e-bike presence in urban traffic. Riders’ speeds and characteristics were collected on six streets and multivariate analyses were applied to reveal factors associated with speeds, place of riding and helmet wearing. E-cyclist behaviours were video-recorded near intersections, in the presence of other road users. The results showed that e-bike presence in urban traffic was similar to that of regular bicycles. At sites with higher vehicle volumes, more e-cyclists used sidewalks. Across all observations, the majority of e-cyclists were young men aged 19-34, and did not wear helmets. Mean speeds of e-cyclists were higher than those of regular cyclists by 4.7 km/h, on average, but were lower on sidewalks. While moving on roadways, e-bikes were typically slower than vehicles; while moving on pedestrian facilities they were faster than pedestrians; the mixed use led to conflicts between various road users. At signalized intersections, 20% of e-cyclists crossed on red. In general, e-cyclist behaviours in Israel had much in common with those reported in Europe and the USA. However, the study showed a mixed use of urban facilities by e-bikes, in Israel, with heterogeneous traffic both on vehicle and pedestrian settings and multiple risk factors. It follows that e-bike volumes should be accounted for in urban planning. For a safer integration of e-bikes in Israeli cities, a wider application of cycling infrastructure, with better separation from sidewalks and roadways, is needed.
We estimate the maximum capability to reduce CO2 by substituting private car travel for e-bike. We use spatial microsimulation (population-synthesis) to stimulate the adult population within every small area in England, taking account of area type and geodemographic circumstances of the population. By estimating for individuals the distance they are capable of travelling by e-bike and the extent to which they are capable of replacing private car travel, we find the upper limit on the capability to reduce CO2 by substituting car travel for e-bike use is 24.4 MTCO2 p.a. (per annum) in England. CO2 saving capability per person and per small area are highest (over 750 kg CO2 per person p.a.) for residents of rural areas and the rural urban fringe. e-bikes offer major conurbations more modest CO2 saving capability per person. We identify areas which are vulnerable to car related economic stress and also have high capability to replace car km with e-bikes, which if supported appropriately could contribute to equitable carbon reduction. Though capable of a very significant contribution to transport carbon reduction, other changes in technology and reduction in demand would also be necessary to reach zero emissions.
Our results are directly relevant to policy actors internationally who require evidence on place-based decarbonisation capability, particularly where car dependence is high. The results highlight how context is important in any attempt to design policy for equitable carbon reduction both to influence discussion on what is possible, as well as practical identification of areas for targeted intervention. Digital indicators covering all zones in a country's geography such as this are also useful because of the rapid digitalisation of policy making. We provide code so that others can produce similar analyses in other countries (https://github.com/DrIanPhilips/e-bikeCarbonReductionCapability).
The promotion of electric vehicles is regarded as a critical aspect of government policy to transition towards a greener mobility system to reduce the pollution load from vehicular emission and deal with the challenges associated with future energy security for the transport sector. Motorized two-wheelers (M2W) are the popular means of personal mobility, and are accounting for nearly 32% of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions in India. In this regard, replacing existing M2W with alternative fuelled vehicles such as the Electric Two-Wheelers (E2W) could significantly minimize the negative implications associated with the usage of M2W. Therefore, this study has attempted to identify and prioritize the key E2W specific attributes to propose necessary policy-level interventions for projecting E2W as an attractive alternative. Initially, an exhaustive set of twenty-three attributes influencing E2W-usage were identified from the literature. Subsequently, experts' opinions and users' perceptions on the importance of the identified attributes were captured and analyzed using appropriate Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to analyze experts' opinions. The RIDIT (Relative to an Identified Distribution and Transformation) method was used to analyze users' perceptions. Finally, both sets of results are compared and combined to derive key E2W specific attributes based on their perceived importance by experts and users. Results indicate that the following attributes, namely, purchase cost and operation cost (Economy-related), range, top speed, battery-charging duration, and acceleration (Vehicle and battery-related), health benefits and reduction in tailpipe emission (User-perceived benefit-related), and charging infrastructure, and parking infrastructure (Transport infrastructure-related) are perceived as the key attributes influencing E2W in the typical Indian context. Based on the results, it is recommended that E2W with a longer range, higher speed, and faster acceleration rate could be promoted as a sustainable alternative to conventional M2W. The provision of adequate charging and parking infrastructure was critical for E2W usage in the Indian context.
Shared spaces are gaining popularity worldwide alongside the promotion of walking and cycling. Pedestrians, conventional bicycles, and electric bicycles (e-bikes) currently coexist in many shared spaces, with the prevalence of e-bikes increasing gradually in recent years. Shared spaces can provide a lower-stress experience for users because they are separated from motorized traffic, but frequent interactions among users raise safety concerns. This study sought to investigate conflict behaviours and characteristics among pedestrians, conventional bicycles, and e-bikes in shared spaces. Video data covering 12 h from three locations in Shenzhen city was analyzed. A total of 1748 pedestrians, 1748 conventional bicycles, and 930 e-bikes were observed, while 337 traffic conflicts were identified using the Dutch Objective Conflict Technique for Operation and Research (DOCTOR) method. Shared-space crash data recorded between April of 2013 and September of 2019 was used to validate and complement the conflict analysis. Friedman test was used to compare the conflict behaviours and characteristics among different groups. The analysis showed a positive relationship between the traffic volume and the number of conflicts but an inverse relationship between the traffic ratios and conflict ratios. Evasive actions, including swerving, decelerating, accelerating, and their combinations, were analyzed for various conflict types and severities, with swerving found to be the most common, especially in slight conflicts. Compared with slight conflicts, conventional bicycles and e-bikes exhibited low-speed characteristics in serious conflicts. These results indicated that high traffic volume and traffic complexity are the main factors that affect conflicts. It was proposed that the conflict coefficient be used to measure shared-space safety. In addition, the video observation study and crash data analysis suggested that conflicts and crashes between e-bikes and pedestrians are high-occurrence events, and that pedestrians are often exposed to higher injury risks.
Along with the increase of online catering, the number of accidents involved meal delivery riders increases dramatically in China, and their riding behavior might contribute to fatal accidents. We conducted a field observation study to investigate the risk behavior characteristics of meal delivery couriers riding electric bicycles at urban intersections in China. We selected 4 typical signalized urban intersections in Beijing, and video recorded traffic behaviors of meal delivery riders for eight hours. A total of 1891 couriers crossing intersections on electric bicycles were observed, categorized, and analyzed. The results showed that red-light-running and riding-on-the-motor-lane were the most frequent risky traffic behaviors. The ratios of risk behaviors from delivery couriers were almost all significantly higher than those of normal riders (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in these risk behaviors for riders across different platforms. The findings provide valuable insights for understanding couriers’ risk behaviors at intersections and make useful suggestions for improving traffic safety.
TRL was invited by the European Commission to undertake a study into the market development and safety of personal mobility devices (PMDs) and L-category vehicles. The objectives of this study were: 1. to provide an inventory of the various types of personal mobility devices available on the market, 2. to provide a detailed analysis of the market and the influence of the existing legislations at EU and national level, 3. to provide a collection and evaluation of available data and information on accidents involving personal mobility devices, 4. to assess the current use and the safety aspects related to the road circulation of personal mobility devices not covered by EU type-approval, 5. and to provide recommendations with regard to minimum safety technical requirements they would have to fulfil and the traffic rules, i.e. use and behaviour rules, that they could be subject to.
The rapid urbanization and subsequent growth of Motorized Two-wheelers (M2W) have significant negative implications on the environment through increased pollution levels in India. Replacing M2W with alternative fueled vehicles such as Electric Two-wheelers (E2W) might significantly minimize pollution. In this regard, this study has attempted to identify and prioritize the set of key E2W specific attributes based on the prospective users' perception. Initially, a comprehensive set of E2W specific attributes influencing users' perception towards E2W usage were identified from the literature. A user-perception-based questionnaire on a standard five-point Likert scale was designed to elicit prospective users' perceptions on the identified E2W attributes. Hyderabad, an Indian metropolitan city, was selected as the case study city to demonstrate the methodology. The users' perception data was then evaluated with the Meta Ranking function; it evaluates the aggregated rankings of the attributes based on the rank aggregation of the results obtained from multiple Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods. The results obtained from the analysis have revealed that among the economy-related attributes, purchase cost and operating cost are perceived as the key attributes. Similarly, range and top speed are found to be the key influencing attributes among the vehicle-related attributes. Among the infrastructure-related attributes, the charging infrastructure and the parking infrastructure were important attributes. Finally, among the user-perceived benefits related attributes, health benefits, and reduction in tailpipe emission were perceived to be significantly influencing the users. Results also indicated a significant influence of socio-economic parameters on users' perception towards E2W attributes. Based on research findings, a set of policy interventions are proposed for devising key strategies for making E2W a more attractive mode.
In the field of human-computer interaction, the term “integration” describes an emergent paradigm in which the human and the computer are tightly coupled. Our previous research has contributed to this paradigm through the design of “bodily integrated” systems, where the human body and the computing machinery are coupled in a way that allows bidirectional actuation. In this article, we build on this design research: we identify gaps in knowledge regarding bodily integration design and propose, in response, two key dimensions along which bodily integration systems can be categorized: bodily agency and bodily ownership. Conceiving each dimension from low to high allows us to define a four-quadrant design space that highlights key user experiences of bodily integration: Super-Body, Tele-Body, Chauffeured-Body, and Possessed-Body. We demonstrate how this design space can be used to analyze bodily integration design using three of our own bodily integration systems as illustrative examples. We also identify seven design strategies for interaction designers to design future bodily integration systems: turn-taking, safety, ease-in, movement, sensations & perceptions, personalization, and bystanders. Ultimately, we hope to advance the emergent integration paradigm through a body-centric design perspective.
Previous studies have revealed the relevance of e-bike use, perception of driving behavior of motorists, and instrumental and affective factors in work and leisure journeys among regular cyclists. However, the importance of these factors as predictors of bicycle crash involvement and severity is less well-known. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of journey attributes, e-bike use, and perception of driving behavior of motorists in predicting bicycle crash involvement and severity , while controlling for sociodemographic factors, cycling levels, cycling environment, and purposes of cycling. We collected data from an online panel of 2,389 respondents from six European countries (Sweden, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Spain). Using the generalized linear model, we found that both bicycle crash involvement and severity were related to lower age, being employed, using the bicycle for traveling to or from college/university, not using the bicycle for lei-sure/training, and using an e-bike. Bicycle crash severity was associated with lower affective attributes, higher instrumental attributes, and the perception of good driving behavior of motorists.
This study aimed to determine the risk factors associated with unsafe events involving a motor vehicle, that occurred while group riding (cycling) in Perth, Western Australia. Naturalistic video footage was collected from 52 group riders and unsafe events identified. A case-crossover study was used to compare the road infrastructure and group behavioural characteristics of 108 case sites where unsafe events occurred to 216 control sites where no unsafe events occurred. After controlling for potential confounding factors, roundabouts increased the risk of an unsafe event compared to midblocks (odds ratio (OR): 3.63, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.57-8.42, p = 0.003), priority control intersections (OR: 4.36, 95% CI: 1.49-12.76, 0.007) and traffic signal intersections (OR: 5.57, 95% CI: 1.42-21.79, p = 0.014). Raised traffic islands (OR: 2.30, 95% CI: 1.41-3.78, p = 0.001), posted speed limits of ≥60 km per hour (OR: 2.45, 95% CI: 1.55-3.86, p < 0.001) and group rider traffic violations (OR: 2.51, 95% CI: 1.14-5.53, p = 0.022) also significantly increased the risk of an unsafe event. Riding two abreast in the traffic lane (OR: 0.50, 95% CI: 0.32-0.76, p = 0.002) or having all riders in the bicycle lane (OR: 0.14, 95% CI: 0.04-0.51, p = 0.003), significantly reduced the risk of an unsafe event, compared to riding single file in the traffic lane. Simple road infrastructure treatments on popular group riding routes as well as education targeting both group riders and motorists, could reduce unsafe events and promote a safer, more inclusive shared road environment for group riders.
Perception of visual, auditory and vibro-tactile signals on a bike were compared in a semi-naturalistic cycling study on a 10 km course. Response rates differed significantly between signal modalities. While auditory signals performed best closely followed by vibro-tactile signals, visual signals were frequently missed. The route type had an effect on the perception of the signals. The influence of the route segments with haptic interference was not expected to be this large on the perception of vibro-tactile signals
Einleitung: Der Boom der Pedelecs hält unvermindert an. Im letzten Jahr waren bereits 4 Mio Pedelecs auf den Straßen unterwegs. Besonders großer Beliebtheit erfreuen sie sich bei älteren Fahrern (infas, 2019).
Methode: Um sich ein Bild von deren Verkehrssicherheit zu machen, wird in Studien oftmals auf die Analyse von Unfall- und Naturalistic-Cycling Daten zurückgegriffen.
Ergebnisse: Es zeigt sich, dass Pedelecfahrer insgesamt ähnlich häufig Unfälle/ kritische Situationen erleben wie Radfahrer (Schleinitz et al., 2014), aber die Unfälle schwerer sind (Uhr & Hertach, 2017). Im Jahr 2017 waren mehr als 5.300 Pedelecfahrer in einen Unfall mit Personenschaden verwickelt (68 Getötete, Destatis, 2018). Als Ursachen für die Unfallschwere werden oftmals die höheren Geschwindigkeiten der Pedelecs (Schleinitz et al., 2014), aber auch das höheren Gewicht angeführt. Bei einer Betrachtung der Unfalltypen, ist auffällig, dass es bei den Pedelecfahrern wesentlich häufiger zu Alleinunfällen kommt. Dies könnte auf Probleme bei der Handhabung z.B. mit der rasanten Beschleunigung bei einem höheren Gewicht hindeuten. Ebenfalls problematisch sind, wie bei Radfahrern auch, Kreuzungssituationen. Am häufigsten kommt es dort mit Pkw zu Einbiegen-/Kreuzenunfällen (Gehlert et al., 2018). Ein Grund könnte die Unterschätzung der Geschwindigkeit von Pedelecfahrern durch andere Verkehrsteilnehmer sein.
Diskussion: Auch wenn sich insgesamt Pedelec- und Fahrradunfälle nicht so stark unterscheiden, sollte die Entwicklung weiter beobachtet werden und den spezifischen Besonderheiten der Pedelecunfälle bei der Präventionsarbeit, zum Beispiel durch Kurse zur Handhabung eines Pedelecs, Rechnung getragen werden.
Cycling is a healthy, environmentally-friendly and enjoyable activity, which unfortunately also claims more than 2000 lives every year in Europe. Many municipalities across Europe are waging successful campaigns to increase cycling and, as a consequence, reduce pollution and congestion. However, at least in the short term, a surge in cycling is also challenging existing infrastructure, regulations, and the interaction among different road users. Further, the nature of cycling is chang-ing as new electrified bicycles (e-bikes) become more prevalent, since they are able to maintain a constant 25km/h speed independent of road gradient or wind. The extent to which e-bikes preva-lence impacts safety is currently unknown and very hard to simulate with statistical models.
In 2012, the BikeSAFE project collected 1474 km of naturalistic cycling data from traditional bicy-cles. Similarly, in 2013, the e-BikeSAFE project collected 1549 km of naturalistic data from e-bikes. All studies took place in the urban area of Göteborg in the same period of the year, and involved the same participants as much as possible. While these naturalistic data sets are limited and pos-sibly not representative of the cycling situation in all of Europe, they are also the most advanced data available today for comparing how traditional and electrical bicycles behave in traffic, thus offering a promising test bed for developing data analysis methodologies.
Five random video clips of 30 seconds duration were extracted for each participant from the data collected in BikeSAFE and e-BikeSAFE, forming an overall analysis database of 140 full HD video clips. Video reduction identified which road users were involved in interactions with the bikes (tra-ditional or electric). During the analysis, potential influencing factors (e.g. width, gradient, and cur-vature of the cycle path) were also taken into account. Information from the video reduction of e-bikes and traditional-bikes was compared by means of odds ratios and combined with subjective data from questionnaires, to determine the extent to which safety concerns about e-bikes are le-gitimate.
Results show that e-bikes and traditional bicycles are ridden differently: cyclists riding e-bikes ex-perience different, more frequent interactions with other road users, and prefer different riding conditions, possibly because of their higher speed. Further, infrastructure (such as crossings) and secondary tasks (such as using a phone) may be particularly dangerous for e-bikers. The results presented in this paper provide new ideas for the design of safer cycle paths and more conspicu-ous e-bikes.
In Europe, the use of electric bicycles is rapidly increasing. This trend raises important safety concerns: Is their use compatible with existing infrastructure and regulations? Do they present novel safety issues? How do they impact other traffic? This study sought to address these concerns, using instrumented electric bicycles to monitor e-cyclists’ behavior in a naturalistic fashion. Data was collected from 12 bicyclists, each of whom rode an instrumented bicycle for two weeks. In total, 1500 km worth of data were collected, including 88 critical events (crashes and near-crashes). Analysis of these critical events identified pedestrians, light vehicles and other bicycles as main threats to a safe ride. Other factors also contributed to crash causation, such as being in proximity to a crossing or encountering a vehicle parked in the bicycle lane. A comparison between electric and traditional bicycles was enabled by the availability of data from a previous study a year earlier, which collected naturalistic cycling data from traditional bicycles using the same instrumentation as in this study. Electric bicycles were found to be ridden faster, on average, than traditional bicycles, in addition to interacting differently with other road users. The results presented in this study also suggest that countermeasures to bicycle crashes should be different for electric and traditional bicycles. Finally, increasing electric bicycle conspicuity appears to be the easiest, most obvious way to increase their safety.
Objective
To examine the relationship between cycling injury severity and personal, trip, route and crash characteristics.
Methods
Data from a previous study of injury risk, conducted in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, were used to classify injury severity using four metrics: (1) did not continue trip by bike; (2) transported to hospital by ambulance; (3) admitted to hospital; and (4) Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS). Multiple logistic regression was used to examine associations with personal, trip, route and crash characteristics.
Results
Of 683 adults injured while cycling, 528 did not continue their trip by bike, 251 were transported by ambulance and 60 were admitted to hospital for further treatment. Treatment urgencies included 75 as CTAS=1 or 2 (most medically urgent), 284 as CTAS=3, and 320 as CTAS=4 or 5 (least medically urgent). Older age and collision with a motor vehicle were consistently associated with increased severity in all four metrics and statistically significant in three each (both variables with ambulance transport and CTAS; age with hospital admission; and motor vehicle collision with did not continue by bike). Other factors were consistently associated with more severe injuries, but statistically significant in one metric each: downhill grades; higher motor vehicle speeds; sidewalks (these significant for ambulance transport); multiuse paths and local streets (both significant for hospital admission).
Conclusions
In two of Canada's largest cities, about one-third of the bicycle crashes were collisions with motor vehicles and the resulting injuries were more severe than in other crash circumstances, underscoring the importance of separating cyclists from motor vehicle traffic. Our results also suggest that bicycling injury severity and injury risk would be reduced on facilities that minimise slopes, have lower vehicle speeds, and that are designed for bicycling rather than shared with pedestrians.
Media articles have promoted the view that cyclists are risk-takers who disregard traffic regulations, but little is known about the contribution of cyclist risk-taking behaviours to crashes. This study examines the role of traffic violations in the 6774 Police-reported bicycle crashes in Queensland between January 2000 and December 2008. Of the 6328 crashes involving bicycles and motor vehicles, cyclists were deemed to be at fault in 44.4% of the incidents. When motorists were determined to be at-fault, failure to yield violations accounted for three of the four most reported contributing factors. In crashes where the cyclist was at-fault, attention and inexperience were the most frequent contributing factors. There were 67 collisions between bicycles and pedestrians, with the cyclist at fault in 65.7%. During the data period 302 single-bicycle crashes were reported. The most frequent contributing factors were avoidance actions to miss another road user and inattention or negligence.
In some parts of the world, electric bicycles (e-bikes) represent a significant share of daily travel, though they are still rare in the United States. The small size and maneuverability of e-bikes that are assets in cities in China may not be as important in the U.S., where cities are built to accommodate cars, but their potential as a substitute for cars makes them an important part of the discussion around sustainable transportation. In this study we conducted 27 interviews with e-bike users in the greater Sacramento area in which we asked participants about the reasons why they chose to invest in an e-bike, the ways in which they use their e-bikes, positive and negative aspects of using e-bikes, and reactions from friends and family members. Several important themes emerged from the interviews. The functional characteristics of e-bikes, particularly greater speed and acceleration than conventional bicycles with less exertion, contribute to several positive aspects of their use, including enabling more people to bicycle, more trips to be made by bicycle, and more fun for their users. The result, for these users, was an overall decrease in driving, with some users getting rid of their car altogether. Negative aspects cited by users include security concerns, safety concerns, unwieldiness, and range anxiety. Participants also discussed several misperceptions on the part of non-users that could inhibit their adoption. These results provide insights for the development of e-bike policy and guidance for future research.
To study cyclists' share of transport modes (modal share) and single-bicycle crashes (SBCs) in different countries in order to investigate if the proportion of cyclist injuries resulting from SBCs is affected by variation in modal share.
A literature search identified figures (largely from western countries) on SBC casualties who are fatally injured, hospitalised or treated at an emergency department. Correlation and regression analyses were used to investigate how bicycle modal share is related to SBCs.
On average, 17% of fatal injuries to cyclists are caused by SBCs. Different countries show a range of values between 5% and 30%. Between 60% and 95% of cyclists admitted to hospitals or treated at emergency departments are victims of SBCs. The proportion of all injured cyclists who are injured in SBCs is unrelated to the share of cycling in the modal split. The share of SBC casualties among the total number of road crash casualties increases proportionally less than the increase in bicycle modal share.
While most fatal injuries among cyclists are due to motor vehicle-bicycle crashes, most hospital admissions and emergency department attendances result from SBCs. As found in previous studies of cyclists injured in collisions, this study found that the increase in the number of SBC casualties is proportionally less than the increase in bicycle modal share.
Introduction:
Cyclists are increasingly overrepresented in traffic crash casualties in Australia. There is evidence that better cycling infrastructure increases participation, but whether it reduces the numbers of injured cyclists is less clear. This study examined injury outcomes of crashes in different cycling environments.
Methods:
Adult cyclists injured on- and off-road were recruited from emergency departments from November 2009 to May 2010 in the Australian Capital Territory. Eligible participants (n = 313/372, 84.1%) were interviewed and their injury self-reports were corroborated with medical records where available. Participants who had crashed in transport-related areas (n = 202, 64.5%) are the focus of this article.
Results:
Participants had crashed in traffic (39.1%), in cycle lanes (7.9%), on shared paths (36.1%), and on footpaths (16.8%). Based on average weekly traffic counts, the crash involvement rate per 1000 cyclists was 11.8 on shared paths compared to 5.8 on cycle lanes. Over half of the participants (52.0%) were injured in single-vehicle bicycle crashes. The remainder involved other road users, including motor vehicles (20.8%), other bicycles (18.8%), pedestrians (6.4%), and animals (2.0%). Pedestrians were involved in 16.4 percent of crashes on shared paths. Minor injuries (Abbreviated Injury Scale [AIS] 1) were sustained by 58.4 percent of cyclists, moderately severe injuries (AIS 2) were sustained by 36.1 percent of cyclists, and 5.4 percent of cyclists were seriously injured (AIS 3+). The average treatment required was 1.8 days with 7.5 days off work and cost to the cyclist of $869 excluding medical treatment. Cyclists who crashed on shared paths or in traffic had higher injury severity scores (ISS; 4.4, 4.0) compared to those in cycle lanes or on footpaths (3.3, 3.4) and required more treatment days (2.8, 1.7 versus 0.0, 0.2).
Conclusions:
Fewer cyclists were injured in on-road cycle lanes than in other cycling environments, and a high proportion of injuries were incurred on shared paths. This study highlights an urgent need to determine appropriate criteria and management strategies for paths classified as suitable for shared or segregated usage. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Traffic Injury Prevention to view the supplemental files.
Older pedestrians and cyclists are vulnerable road users, comprising a substantial proportion of all road fatalities world-wide. Pedestrian fatalities constitute between 20 and 30 percent of road fatalities, while cyclist deaths range
In The Netherlands, on bicycle paths, single-bicycle accidents, bicycle-bicycle and bicycle-moped accidents constitute a considerable share of all bicyclist injuries. Over three quarters of all hospitalised bicyclist victims in the Netherlands cannot be directly related to a crash with motorised traffic. As the usage of bicycle paths steadily increases, it is to be expected that safety on bicycle paths will become a major issue in the coming years in The Netherlands. A study was conducted into the behaviour of bicyclists and moped riders to improve traffic safety on bicycle paths. By behavioural observations with video, mutual conflicts and bicyclist behaviour on bicycle paths were recorded and analysed, among other things by means of the conflict observation method DOCTOR (Dutch Objective Conflict Technique for Operation and Research). The explorative phase of the study (phase 1), included two research locations, one in the city of Amsterdam and one in Eindhoven. The results gave guidance for a better understanding of the behaviour between different users of separate two-directional bicycle paths. An example includes the relationship between bicyclist-moped rider behaviour and the width of the bicycle path. For a condition with busy bicycle traffic in both directions the width of the bicycle path in Amsterdam (effectively 3.55m) is relatively narrow, whereas the bicycle path width in Eindhoven (>4.94m) appears to be sufficient to accommodate large flows of bicyclists. Because of a large flow of crossing pedestrians resulting in (severe) conflicts with bicyclists in Amsterdam, additional countermeasures to better control these interactions are needed. The DOCTOR conflict observation method from video appears to be applicable for conflicts between intersecting road users and for head-on conflicts on the bicycle path. Conflict situations between bicyclists in the same direction (constituting an important share of injury accidents on bicycle paths) require an additional and more general systematic observation of specific behaviour. Therefore, phase 2 of the project will focus in particular on interactions between bicycle path users in the same direction and underlying processes.
Background
This study examined the impact of transportation infrastructure at intersection and non-intersection locations on bicycling injury risk.
Methods
In Vancouver and Toronto, we studied adult cyclists who were injured and treated at a hospital emergency department. A case–crossover design compared the infrastructure of injury and control sites within each injured bicyclist's route. Intersection injury sites (N=210) were compared to randomly selected intersection control sites (N=272). Non-intersection injury sites (N=478) were compared to randomly selected non-intersection control sites (N=801).
Results
At intersections, the types of routes meeting and the intersection design influenced safety. Intersections of two local streets (no demarcated traffic lanes) had approximately one-fifth the risk (adjusted OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.66) of intersections of two major streets (more than two traffic lanes). Motor vehicle speeds less than 30 km/h also reduced risk (adjusted OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.92). Traffic circles (small roundabouts) on local streets increased the risk of these otherwise safe intersections (adjusted OR 7.98, 95% CI 1.79 to 35.6). At non-intersection locations, very low risks were found for cycle tracks (bike lanes physically separated from motor vehicle traffic; adjusted OR 0.05, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.59) and local streets with diverters that reduce motor vehicle traffic (adjusted OR 0.04, 95% CI 0.003 to 0.60). Downhill grades increased risks at both intersections and non-intersections.
Conclusions
These results provide guidance for transportation planners and engineers: at local street intersections, traditional stops are safer than traffic circles, and at non-intersections, cycle tracks alongside major streets and traffic diversion from local streets are safer than no bicycle infrastructure.
This chapter provides readers with the conceptual and statistical underpinnings of matching methods. These methods have gained
in popularity in recent years given the push to make stronger inferential statements about the impact of educational interventions
and policies. Given the likelihood of nonrandom assignment into “treatments” in higher education, matching methods seem particularly
well suited to apply in many educational research contexts. We demonstrate the use of these methods by examining whether there
are differences in educational outcomes depending on whether students begin their postsecondary careers in a 2- or 4-year
institution. Our results indicate that estimates of the educational outcomes examined are sensitive to the choice of analytic
methods employed. These results provide evidence that remedying nonrandom assignment problems that are often encountered in
higher education research is important if we hope to provide accurate information to our colleagues and educational policymakers.
This paper examines the relationship between the amount of bicycle use and the number of single-bicycle crashes (ie, only one cyclist involved) in Dutch municipalities. Previous research has focused on crashes between bicycles and motor vehicles; however, most cyclists admitted to hospital are victims of single-bicycle crashes.
This correlational study used three data sets which included data relating to single-bicycle crashes and kilometres travelled by bicycle. Negative binomial regression was used to compare the amount of bicycling with the number of injuries incurred in single-bicycle crashes in Dutch municipalities.
The likelihood of single-bicycle crashes varied inversely with the level of bicycle use. The exponent for the change in the number of single-bicycle crashes in response to changes in bicycle volumes was <1 in all analyses (ie, the increase in the number of single-bicycle crashes in a given municipality is proportionally less than the increase in the number of bicycle kilometres travelled by its inhabitants). The value was reduced in analyses of single-bicycle crashes with more severe injuries.
Cyclists are less likely to be involved in a severe single-bicycle crash in municipalities with a high amount of cycling. Given the large numbers of patients admitted to hospital as a result of single-bicycle crashes, it is important to include the risks of these in road safety and health effect evaluations, and to take into account the non-linearity of the relationship between single-bicycle crashes and bicycle use if road safety measures are to affect the level of bicycle use.
Most individuals prefer bicycling separated from motor traffic. However, cycle tracks (physically separated bicycle-exclusive paths along roads, as found in The Netherlands) are discouraged in the USA by engineering guidance that suggests that facilities such as cycle tracks are more dangerous than the street. The objective of this study conducted in Montreal (with a longstanding network of cycle tracks) was to compare bicyclist injury rates on cycle tracks versus in the street. For six cycle tracks and comparable reference streets, vehicle/bicycle crashes and health record injury counts were obtained and use counts conducted. The relative risk (RR) of injury on cycle tracks, compared with reference streets, was determined. Overall, 2.5 times as many cyclists rode on cycle tracks compared with reference streets and there were 8.5 injuries and 10.5 crashes per million bicycle-kilometres. The RR of injury on cycle tracks was 0.72 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.85) compared with bicycling in reference streets. These data suggest that the injury risk of bicycling on cycle tracks is less than bicycling in streets. The construction of cycle tracks should not be discouraged.
The study aim was to identify risk factors for collisions/near-collisions involving on-road commuter cyclists and drivers. A naturalistic cycling study was conducted in Melbourne, Australia, with cyclists wearing helmet-mounted video cameras. Video recordings captured cyclists' perspective of the road and traffic behaviours including head checks, reactions and manoeuvres. The 100-car naturalistic driving study analysis technique was adapted for data analysis and events were classified by severity: collision, near-collision and incident. Participants were adult cyclists and each filmed 12 hours of commuter cycling trips over a 4-week period. In total, 127 hours and 38 minutes were analysed for 13 participants, 54 events were identified: 2 collisions, 6 near-collisions and 46 incidents. Prior to events, 88.9% of cyclists travelled in a safe/legal manner. Sideswipe was the most frequent event type (40.7%). Most events occurred at an intersection/intersection-related location (70.3%). The vehicle driver was judged at fault in the majority of events (87.0%) and no post-event driver reaction was observed (83.3%). Cross tabulations revealed significant associations between event severity and: cyclist reaction, cyclist post-event manoeuvre, pre-event driver behaviour, other vehicle involved, driver reaction, visual obstruction, cyclist head check (left), event type and vehicle location (p<0.05). Frequent head checks suggest cyclists had high situational awareness and their reactive behaviour to driver actions led to successful avoidance of collisions/near-collisions. Strategies to improve driver awareness of on-road cyclists and to indicate early before turning/changing lanes when sharing the roadway with cyclists are discussed. Findings will contribute to the development of effective countermeasures to reduce cyclist trauma.
Bicycling has the potential to improve fitness, diminish obesity, and reduce noise, air pollution, and greenhouse gases associated with travel. However, bicyclists incur a higher risk of injuries requiring hospitalization than motor vehicle occupants. Therefore, understanding ways of making bicycling safer and increasing rates of bicycling are important to improving population health. There is a growing body of research examining transportation infrastructure and the risk of injury to bicyclists.
We reviewed studies of the impact of transportation infrastructure on bicyclist safety. The results were tabulated within two categories of infrastructure, namely that at intersections (e.g. roundabouts, traffic lights) or between intersections on "straightaways" (e.g. bike lanes or paths). To assess safety, studies examining the following outcomes were included: injuries; injury severity; and crashes (collisions and/or falls).
The literature to date on transportation infrastructure and cyclist safety is limited by the incomplete range of facilities studied and difficulties in controlling for exposure to risk. However, evidence from the 23 papers reviewed (eight that examined intersections and 15 that examined straightaways) suggests that infrastructure influences injury and crash risk. Intersection studies focused mainly on roundabouts. They found that multi-lane roundabouts can significantly increase risk to bicyclists unless a separated cycle track is included in the design. Studies of straightaways grouped facilities into few categories, such that facilities with potentially different risks may have been classified within a single category. Results to date suggest that sidewalks and multi-use trails pose the highest risk, major roads are more hazardous than minor roads, and the presence of bicycle facilities (e.g. on-road bike routes, on-road marked bike lanes, and off-road bike paths) was associated with the lowest risk.
Evidence is beginning to accumulate that purpose-built bicycle-specific facilities reduce crashes and injuries among cyclists, providing the basis for initial transportation engineering guidelines for cyclist safety. Street lighting, paved surfaces, and low-angled grades are additional factors that appear to improve cyclist safety. Future research examining a greater variety of infrastructure would allow development of more detailed guidelines.
The interaction between pedestrians and left-turning vehicles at signalized intersections are examined using the traffic conflict technique. Paramount was a comparison of the safety of left turns at two types intersections: T-intersections and X-intersections (cross-intersections). Previous research has indicated that T-intersections are more dangerous to pedestrians. In preparation for the comparison several traffic conflict definitions and their applications to pedestrians were evaluated. Use of a laptop computer for data collection was tested. Eight sites taken from intersections in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, were selected. A conflict recording methodology was developed for T-intersections and X-intersections that consisted of recording data at various times along the paths of pedestrians and left-turning vehicles, and recording traffic conflicts. Two computer programs were written for the data collection process: one for vehicles and one for pedestrians. Several statistical tests to relate traffic conflicts and the expected number of accidents were performed. These tests indicate that a positive correlation between traffic conflicts and expected number of accidents exists; they also suggest that T-intersections have a higher traffic conflict rate than X-intersections.
Die rechtliche Situation in Österreich unterscheidet sich von anderen Ländern in mehreren Aspekten. Anders als zum Beispiel in Deutschland oder der Schweiz können hier unter bestimmten Voraussetzungen (Leistungs- und Geschwindigkeitsgrenzen) auch selbstfahrende, elektrisch angetriebene Fahrzeuge rechtlich als Fahrräder gelten. Somit dürfen im Prinzip – bis zu 70 kg schwere – Elektroscooter (E-Scooter) von 10-jährigen Kindern mit Fahrradausweis sowie 12-jährigen Kindern ohne Fahrausbildung unbeaufsichtigt im öffentlichen Straßenverkehr benutzt werden. Die Verwendung derartiger Fahrzeuge von Kindern ist aufgrund des Verhältnisses Fahrer- zu Fahrzeuggewicht und der erreichbaren Geschwindigkeit jedenfalls als sicherheitskritisch anzusehen.
Die Fahrzeugklasse der schnellen Pedelecs existiert rechtlich in Österreich nicht. Bei den am Markt befindlichen Fahrzeugen und auch verkauften Fahrzeugen dieses Typs handelt es sich weder um Fahrräder noch entsprechen sie den Ausrüstungsvorschriften für Mopeds. Ansuchen um Einzeltypengenehmigungen wurden bislang nicht gewährt. Schnelle Pedelecs dürfen in Österreich deshalb nicht im öffentlichen Straßenraum betrieben werden. Auch die rechtliche Einordnung von Segways als Fahrrad in Österreich ist einzigartig. Eine Orientierung an den gesetzlichen Regelungen in Deutschland und der Schweiz wäre aus harmonisierungs- und verkehrstechnischer Sicht wünschenswert. Insbesondere wäre eine klare gesetzliche Regelung der Fahrzeugklasse S-Pedelec anzustreben.
Die Exekutive hat derzeit keine Möglichkeit, die Gesetzeskonformität der Leistung eines Elektrofahrrads (E-Fahrrads) zu überprüfen beziehungsweise Fahrzeuge (außer wenn diese an einem Unfall beteiligt sind) in Prüfanstalten zuzuführen. Weiters können Pedelecs leicht in Richtung einer Erhöhung der mit Trittkraftunterstützung erreichbaren Geschwindigkeit manipuliert werden. Für eine effiziente Kontrolle durch die Exekutive wären Maßnahmen wie ein Antimanipulationsschild unbedingt erforderlich.
Grundsätzlich wäre es erforderlich, Verkehrsunfälle mit E-Fahrrädern in der amtlichen Verkehrsunfallstatistik gesondert zu erfassen, um die Analyse und Beobachtung des Unfallgeschehens zu gewährleisten.
Volltext: https://www.bmvit.gv.at/verkehr/strasse/sicherheit/fonds/vsf/downloads/19_endbericht_merkur.pdf
This chapter describes the traffic conflict technique and the theory behind the power of instrumented vehicle or naturalistic driving studies, the life cycle of naturalistic driving studies, and powerful analytic techniques that can and have been used with these data. Naturalistic driving data provide powerful tools for safety researchers that incorporate some characteristics of epidemiological data analysis techniques with empirical data analysis techniques. Although these characteristics are very beneficial, they also provide novel new data and analytic methods in which to explore and study driver safety, specifically driver behavior. The life cycle of naturalistic driving studies includes the following: study design and data collection, data preparation and storage, data coding, and data analysis. Each of these steps is complex primarily due to the size and the extent of the data being collected. Naturalistic driving studies typically collect 6-8 gigabytes of video per minute, which can easily result in thousands of hours of video collected, and 6-10 TB of data that must be prepared, stored, coded, and analyzed. Naturalistic driving studies are typically lengthy and resource-intensive but worth the rich, detailed data that can be collected. These types of studies are complex and require extensive planning both prior to data collection and through the entire life cycle of the study to ensure that the initial research objectives are appropriately evaluated. Detailed planning at every step in the life cycle will result in a much easier and efficient data analysis phase of the project.
In recent years, the number of electric bicycles on European, American and especially Chinese roads has increased substantially. Today, 11% of all bicycles sold in Germany are e-bikes. Given their potential to reach higher maximum speeds, concerns have been raised about a possible increase in crash risk associated with e-bike use. However, as of now, it is unclear if and how often the potentially higher speed is actually reached in everyday cycling. As part of the German Naturalistic Cycling Study we measured and compared the speed of three bicycle types (conventional bicycles, pedelecs (pedalling supported up to 25. km/h), S-pedelecs (pedalling supported up to 45. km/h)) under naturalistic conditions. Ninety participants, divided in three age groups, took part in our study. Participants used their own bikes or e-bikes. The bicycles were equipped with a data acquisition system, which included sensors to record speed and distance, as well as two cameras. Data was collected over a period of four weeks for each participant. Nearly 17,000. km of cycling were recorded in total. The statistical analysis revealed significant differences in mean speed between all three bicycle types. Pedelec riders were, on average, 2. km/h faster than cyclists. S-pedelec speed was even 9. km/h higher. A similar pattern was also found when analysing free flow conditions and uphill or downhill cycling separately. The highest speed was measured on carriageways and bicycle infrastructure, regardless of bicycle type. Participants aged over 65. years rode significantly slower than younger participants. Data on acceleration from standstill largely confirm the differences between bicycle types and age groups. The results show that electric bicycles indeed reach higher speeds than conventional bicycles regularly. Although it is unclear if this also leads to an increase in crash risk, it can be assumed that the consequences of a crash might be, on average, more severe.
The growing popularity of electric bicycles gives rise to a variety of road safety questions. One of the issues is e-bikes’ potential to achieve a higher speed compared to conventional bicycles. Especially for road users that are unfamiliar with that type of bicycle, underestimations of speed might be suspected which could lead drivers to accept unsafe gaps (e.g. for turning manoeuvres) in front of approaching e-bikes. But also higher speed as such might prove problematic, as previous studies have shown repeatedly that drivers tend to choose smaller time gaps in front of vehicles approaching at higher speed. Forty-two drivers (two age groups) were recruited to investigate their gap acceptance behaviour on a test track. Participants were seated in a car, waiting to enter traffic, which would have required crossing a lane on which a cyclist approached. Cyclists approached at speeds between 15 and 35 km/h and rode either a conventional bicycle or an e-bike. Participants were instructed to press a foot pedal to indicate the last moment at which they would be willing to enter traffic in front of the bicyclist. Results show that with increasing cyclist speed, accepted time gaps became significantly shorter. At the same time, participants appeared to select shorter time gaps when the approaching bicycle was an electric one, even though the two different bicycle types could not be distinguished from the participants’ position. Although we found only few accepted gap sizes that would have been especially risky, the findings indicate that the effect of bicycle speed has to be considered when discussing the consequences of an increased e-bike prevalence for road safety.
As electric bicycles (e-bikes) have emerged as a new transportation mode, their role in transportation systems and their impact on users have become important issues for policy makers and engineers. Little safety-related research has been conducted in North America or Europe because of their relatively small numbers. This work describes the results of a naturalistic GPS-based safety study between regular bicycle (i.e., standard bicycle) and e-bike riders in the context of a unique bikesharing system that allows comparisons between instrumented bike technologies. We focus on rider safety behavior under four situations: (1) riding in the correct direction on directional roadway segments, (2) speed on on-road and shared use paths, (3) stopping behavior at stop-controlled intersections, and (4) stopping behavior at signalized intersections. We find that, with few exceptions, riders of e-bike behave very similarly to riders of bicycles. Violation rates were very high for both vehicles. Riders of regular bicycles and e-bikes both ride wrong-way on 45% and 44% of segments, respectively. We find that average on-road speeds of e-bike riders (13.3kph) were higher than regular bicyclists (10.4kph) but shared use path (greenway) speeds of e-bike riders (11.0kph) were lower than regular bicyclists (12.6kph); both significantly different at >95% confidence. At stop control intersections, both bicycle and e-bike riders violate the stop signs at the similar rate with bicycles violating stop signs at a slightly higher rate at low speed thresholds (∼80% violations at 6kph, 40% violations at 11kph). Bicycles and e-bikes violate traffic signals at similar rates (70% violation rate). These findings suggest that, among the same population of users, e-bike riders exhibit nearly identical safety behavior as regular bike riders and should be regulated in similar ways. Users of both technologies have very high violation rates of traffic control devices and interventions should occur to improve compliance.
Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Use of electrically assisted bicycles with a maximum speed of 25 km/h is rapidly increasing. This growth has been particularly rapid in the Netherlands, yet very little research has been conducted to assess the road safety implications. This case–control study compares the likelihood of crashes for which treatment at an emergency department is needed and injury consequences for electric bicycles to classic bicycles in the Netherlands among users of 16 years and older. Data were gathered through a survey of victims treated at emergency departments. Additionally, a survey of cyclists without any known crash experience, drawn from a panel of the Dutch population acted as a control sample. Logistic regression analysis is used to compare the risk of crashes with electric and classical bicycles requiring treatment at an emergency department. Among the victims treated at an emergency department we compared those being hospitalized to those being send home after the treatment at the emergency department to compare the injury consequences between electric and classical bicycle victims. The results suggest that, after controlling for age, gender and amount of bicycle use, electric bicycle users are more likely to be involved in a crash that requires treatment at an emergency department due to a crash. Crashes with electric bicycles are about equally severe as crashes with classic bicycles. We advise further research to develop policies to minimize the risk and maximize the health benefits for users of electric bicycles.
Background:
The acceptance and usage of electric bicycles has rapidly increased in Switzerland in the last years. Hence this topic has been addressed by policy makers with the aim to facilitate new transport modes and, moreover, to improve their safety.
Methods:
Police-recorded accidents of the years 2011 and 2012 involving a total of 504 e-bikers and 871 bicyclists were analysed. National figures were compared with those of a rural and an urban environment.
Results:
Most e-bikers who were involved in accidents were 40-65 years old. It was found that most e-bikers sustained single accidents and that helmet usage was higher in the investigated rural environment than in the investigated urban area. The evaluation of the injury severity of e-bikers, particularly compared to bicyclists, lead to diverging results.
Conclusions:
The findings presented in this study are intended to serve as a benchmark since basic information on characteristics of e-bike accidents is provided. With respect to differences between the injury severity of e-bikers and bicyclists to-date no clear statement can be drawn. It is suggested to regularly evaluate e-bike accidents to show trends and/or identify changes.
Presently, the collection and analysis of naturalistic data is the most credited method for understanding road user behavior and improving traffic safety. Such methodology was developed for motorized vehicles, such as cars and trucks, and is still largely applied to those vehicles. However, a reasonable question is whether bicycle safety can also benefit from the naturalistic methodology, once collection and analyses are properly ported from motorized vehicles to bicycles. This paper answers this question by showing that instrumented bicycles can also collect analogous naturalistic data. In addition, this paper shows how naturalistic cycling data from 16 bicyclists can be used to estimate risk while cycling. The results show that cycling near an intersection increased the risk of experiencing a critical event by four times, and by twelve times when the intersection presented some form of visual occlusion (e.g., buildings and hedges). Poor maintenance of the road increased the risk tenfold. Furthermore, the risk of experiencing a critical event was twice as large when at least one pedestrian or another bicyclist crossed the bicyclist’s trajectory. Finally, this study suggests the two most common scenarios for bicycle accidents, which result from different situations and thus require different countermeasures. The findings presented in this paper show that bicycle safety can benefit from the naturalistic methodology, which provides data able to guide development and evaluation of (intelligent) countermeasures to increase cycling safety.
This paper describes the application of the traffic conflict technique to estimate, traffic safety at intersections. Using data collected from 94 conflict surveys, traffic conflict frequency and severity standards for signalized and unsignalized intersections have been established. These standards allow for the relative comparison of the conflict risk at various intersections. An Intersection Conflict Index (ICI) measure was developed to summarize conflict risk and provide an indication regarding the relative risk of being involved in a conflict at an intersection. In addition, regression analysis was used to develop predictive models which relate the number of traffic conflicts to traffic volume and accidents. The regression analysis results indicate that: (i) the average hourly conflict rate (AHC) and the average hourly severe conflict rate (AHC 4+) correlated reasonably well with traffic volume for both signalized and unsignalized intersections, and (ii) strong relationships between accidents and conflicts were obtained for signalized intersections only. These research efforts are expected to further enhance the usefulness of the traffic conflict technique as a tool to evaluate the safety of intersections. Finally, a case study is presented as an example of the usefulness of traffic conflict analysis.
This study aimed to estimate the association of cyclists' age and sex with the risk of being involved in a crash with and without adjustment for their amount of exposure. We used the distribution of the entire population and cyclists (total and non-responsible) involved in road crashes in Spain between 1993 and 2009 held by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics and the Spanish General Traffic Directorate to calculate rates of exposure and involvement in a crash. Males aged 45-49 years were used as the reference category to obtain exposure rate ratios (ERR) and unadjusted crash rate ratios (URR). We then used these values in decomposition analysis to calculate crash rate ratios adjusted for exposure (ARR). The pattern of ARR was substantially different from URR. In both sexes the highest values were observed in the youngest age groups, and the values decreased as age increased except for a slight increase in the oldest age groups. In males, a slight increase in the lowest and highest age categories was observed for crashes resulting in severe injury or death, and a decrease was observed for the youngest cyclists who were wearing a helmet. The large differences between age and sex groups in the risk of involvement in a cycling crash are strongly dependent on differences in their exposure rates. Taking exposure rates into account, cyclists younger than 30 years and older than 65 years of age had the highest risk of being involved in a crash.
The interaction between pedestrians and left-turning vehicles at signalized intersections are examined using the traffic conflict technique. Paramount was a comparison of the safety of left turns at two types intersections: T-intersections and X-intersections (cross-intersections). Previous research has indicated that T-intersections are more dangerous to pedestrians. In preparation for the comparison several traffic conflict definitions and their applications to pedestrians were evaluated. Use of a laptop computer for data collection was tested. Eight sites taken from intersections in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, were selected. A conflict recording methodology was developed for T-intersections and X-intersections that consisted of recording data at various times along the paths of pedestrians and left-turning vehicles, and recording traffic conflicts. Two computer programs were written for the data collection process: one for vehicles and one for pedestrians. Several statistical tests to relate traffic conflicts and the expected number of accidents were performed. These tests indicate that a positive correlation between traffic conflicts and expected number of accidents exists; they also suggest that T-intersections have a higher traffic conflict rate than X-intersections.
New trends in research on traffic accidents include Naturalistic Driving Studies (NDS). NDS are based on large scale data collection of driver, vehicle, and environment information in real world. NDS data sets have proven to be extremely valuable for the analysis of safety critical events such as crashes and near crashes. However, finding safety critical events in NDS data is often difficult and time consuming. Safety critical events are currently identified using kinematic triggers, for instance searching for deceleration below a certain threshold signifying harsh braking. Due to the low sensitivity and specificity of this filtering procedure, manual review of video data is currently necessary to decide whether the events identified by the triggers are actually safety critical. Such reviewing procedure is based on subjective decisions, is expensive and time consuming, and often tedious for the analysts. Furthermore, since NDS data is exponentially growing over time, this reviewing procedure may not be viable anymore in the very near future.
A quasi-induced exposure approach was applied to the Spanish Register of Traffic Crashes to identify driver- and vehicle-related factors associated with the risk of causing a road crash involving a cyclist in Spain from 1993 to 2009. We analyzed 19,007 collisions between a bicycle and another vehicle in which only one of the drivers committed an infraction, and 13,540 records that included the group of non-infractor cyclists in the above collisions plus cyclists involved in single-bicycle crashes. Adjusted odds ratios were calculated for being responsible for each type of crash for each factor considered. Age from 10 to 19 years, male sex, alcohol or drug consumption and non-helmet use were cyclist-related variables associated with a higher risk of crash, whereas cycling more than 1h increased only the risk of single crashes. Bicycles with brake defects and ridden by two occupants were also at higher risk of involvement in a crash, whereas light defects were associated only with collisions with another vehicle. For drivers of the other vehicle, age more than 60 years, alcohol, not using safety devices and nonprofessional drivers were at higher risk. The risk of colliding with a bicycle was higher for mopeds than for passenger cars.
Few naturalistic studies have been carried out with commuter cyclists to discover the types of problems they encounter on a daily basis. The study presented here has been commissioned by the City of Stockholm municipality and focuses specifically on commuter cyclists in the Greater Stockholm area. The aim of the study was to describe and pinpoint accessibility and safety problems, but also to generate an accessible geographical interface that could serve as a traffic planning tool for cycle network improvement. Statistical surveys in the Stockholm area have shown a rapid growth in the number of cyclists as well as an increase in problems associated with an overburdened cycle infrastructure. Given the heightened emphasis on transport system sustainability, the City of Stockholm is faced with the challenging task of trying to maintain and encourage the upward trend in commuter cycling through a process that involves problem identification, classification, prioritisation and resolution. An innovative methodology involving the use of GPS logging devices and small video cameras was developed and supported with analysis software designed specifically for the purposes of this study. Experienced commuter cyclists were recruited to cycle 17 different major cycle routes to and from the suburbs and inner city area during morning and afternoon peak traffic hours during the main cycle season. Over 500 safety and accessibility/mobility problems were identified and recorded from the data collected from 16 commuter cyclists. The method and representation of data proved successful for strategic traffic planning work at City of Stockholm and has since provided invaluable input for and the development of a new cycle plan for Greater Stockholm. Indirectly, the results of this work have also contributed to longer term safety and environmental targets.
Bicycle injuries, particularly those resulting from single bicycle crashes, are underreported in both police and hospital records. Data on cyclist characteristics and crash circumstances are also often lacking. As a result, the ability to develop comprehensive injury prevention policies is hampered. The aim of this study was to examine the incidence, severity, cyclist characteristics, and crash circumstances associated with cycling injuries in a sample of cyclists in Queensland, Australia. A cross-sectional study of Queensland cyclists was conducted in 2009. Respondents (n=2056) completed an online survey about their cycling experiences, including cycling injuries. Logistic regression modelling was used to examine the associations between demographic and cycling behaviour variables with experiencing cycling injuries in the past year, and, separately, with serious cycling injuries requiring a trip to a hospital. Twenty-seven percent of respondents (n=545) reported injuries, and 6% (n=114) reported serious injuries. In multivariable modelling, reporting an injury was more likely for respondents who had cycled <5 years, compared to ≥ 10 years (p<0.005); cycled for competition (p=0.01); or experienced harassment from motor vehicle occupants (p<0.001). There were no gender differences in injury incidence, and respondents who cycled for transport did not have an increased risk of injury. Reporting a serious injury was more likely for those whose injury involved other road users (p<0.03). Along with environmental and behavioural approaches for reducing collisions and near-collisions with motor vehicles, interventions that improve the design and maintenance of cycling infrastructure, increase cyclists' skills, and encourage safe cycling behaviours and bicycle maintenance will also be important for reducing the overall incidence of cycling injuries.
In 2006, we carried out a cross-sectional study in the urban area of Pelotas, Southern Brazil, with the aim of outlining the profile of bicycle commuters, analyzing their use of safety equipment and risk behaviors and the association between these variables and involvement in traffic accidents in the previous 12 months. This study was based on the baseline survey carried out prior to an educational intervention aimed at reducing accidents among cyclists. The sample included 1133 male subjects aged 20 years or more, and who used a bicycle for commuting. Crude and adjusted analyses were carried out using Poisson regression. We recorded a total of 152 reported traffic accidents in the 12 months preceding the interview, involving 10.8% of subjects. Most risk behaviors studied and the use of safety equipment showed no significant association with accidents. Only commuting by bicycle seven days per week, as opposed to five or six, and a combination of extremely imprudent behaviors such as zigzagging through traffic, riding after ingesting alcohol, and high-speed riding were found to be risk factors for accidents. Our findings suggest that in the context where the study was done (poor road signaling, limited policing, aggressive driving) changing cyclist behavior may not have substantial impact in terms of accident reduction before other road traffic interventions are implemented.