A behavioural study was conducted for the evaluation of specific measures for bicycle traffic in traffic areas in Eindhoven and Rijswijk, two cities in the Netherlands. Road user behaviour was recorded by means of video. A number of behavioural aspects, such as speed, speed changes, place of stopping were studied in detail. Recordings were made either by scoring directly from the video-recordings, by a rough quantitative analysis or by a full quantitative analysis by measuring positions of vehicles in subsequent video stills. For an objective measure of the seriousness of an interaction between road users a time-to-collision measure (TTC) was used. The extension of cycle-track pavement over the intersection plane with the minor street, in combination with a constriction of the lane width of the minor street, reduces the speed of crossing vehicles. Only a waiting section of about 5 m between cycle track and the border of the traffic lane is sufficient to reduce the number of stops upon the cycle track. In general, the number of conflicts is very low for this type of manoeuvre combination. The crossing of a high-volume traffic artery by cyclists took a shorter time in the after period: a situation with smaller traffic lanes and a free area of two metres in the middle of the road with a refuge. Also the standard deviation of crossing times is lower. On the basis of the number and seriousness of the conflicts cyclists from the redesigned area seem to take a greater risk when crossing a traffic artery than before. Special cycle lanes on approaches to signalised intersections give extra room to the cyclists near the stop line. Under over-saturated conditions for the right-turn lane, in most cases motorists stop their car fully upon the cycle lanes, giving a lot of trouble for the cyclists.
Abstract