Knowledge has been provided about one-directional traffic streams of bicycles and mopeds on cycle paths. This knowledge is useful for the perfection of the geometric design of bicycle facilities. Dataon bicycle traffic were collected on rather heavily used paths at four locaitons in built-up areas and one in a rural area. A special developed system of sensors was used to measure times of passage, speeds, and lateral positions of the vehicles at a path cross section. Speeds of bicycles and mopeds had the same magnitude at the different town locations. They were of the same magnitude as measured 10 years ago. Only a weak relation was found between the rate of flow in platoons and mean speed. The distribution of the lateral positions was used to investigate the influence of the geometrics of the path'scross section. The average length of passing maneuvers and the percentiles of the lateral positions during passing were determined. On the narrow path, the length of the passing maneuver is shorter than that on the wider paths. Also, lateral clearance between paired cyclists is less on narrower than on wider paths. Paired cyclists keep less lateral distance to each other than do passers. As a function ofvolume, the frequency of passings conforms to the theory that describes free flow conditions. However, in absolute terms, the number ofpassings detected was lower. Estimated values of path capacities derived from the headway distribution are much larger than those mentioned in the literature. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1320, Freeway operations, highway capacity, and traffic flow 1991.
Abstract