Urban mobility on the bicycle path; Observations of numbers, characteristics, behaviour and conflicts of users of bike paths. In recent years, bicycle mobility in the Netherlands has grown; especially in the major cities. The share of cyclists among the serious road injuries has also increased, particularly in crashes without involvement of a motor vehicle. The increase in traffic density and decrease in road safety has raised concerns about the amount of traffic and nuisance on the bike path, especially in large cities. However, no data is available specific to the locations where problems are experienced. In its research programme 2015, SWOV therefore included a project on users of the bike path. This report describes the results of the project. The most important questions of the project were: 1) Who make use of the bike path? 2) How is the use divided across types of users? 3) What are the characteristics of the users and their vehicles? 4) How do they behave? 5) How is the interaction with other traffic on the bike path? 6) Is that a source of conflicts? These questions were answered by placing cameras on eight locations (four in Amsterdam, four in The Hague) and analysing the images that were recorded during the morning rush hour on 9 days in spring 2015. The locations were chosen in consultation with the two municipalities and were two one-way bike paths and two bi-directional bike paths in each municipality. The images were processed in two ways. The company that placed the cameras afterwards performed an analysis on the images that made it possible to perform automatic counts and speed measurements. In addition, the images were coded manually; times, types of road users, location and any occurring conflicts being recorded. An analysis of two behavioural variables was performed on a selection of the images: mobile phone use and looking over the shoulder while overtaking. The results show that more than 90% of the users of the bike path ride a standard bicycle or a bicycle with a luggage crate mounted on the front. An average of 6% of the total number of users are light-moped riders, although the percentages varied considerably across the locations (4-9%). Based on the measured volumes, a comparison was made between the actual width of the bike paths and the width that is prescribed given this specific traffic volume in the Design Guide for Bicycle Traffic by CROW (2006). A bike path was labelled 'busy' if, according to the CROW-guidelines, the width of the bike path was too narrow for the traffic volume expressed by the number of users that do actually pass during a rush hour. This analysis resulted in the two one-way bike paths in Amsterdam being classified ‘busy’ whereas the two bi-directional bike paths were not. In The Hague one of the one-way and one of the bi-directional bike paths were classified as ‘busy’. The classification as ‘busy’ did not change if light-moped riders were not included in the analysis: the more than 90% cyclists were sufficient to classify the four most intensively used bike paths as ‘busy’. The additional average of 6% light-moped riders make a substantial contribution to the traffic volume. The analysis of speeds showed that the average speed on bi-directional bike paths was higher than on one-way bike paths. Furthermore, the average speed and the standard deviation of the speed on busy bike paths was found to be lower than the speed on less busy cycle paths. This seems to indicate that at higher intensities users of the bike path have less opportunity to choose their own speed and have to adapt their speed to that of other traffic. In most cases use of the smartphone while cycling concerned listening to music or hands free phone calls, although 1 to 4% of the bike path users operated the screen during cycling. The percentage of users that were not distracted by the smartphone when cycling ranged from 74.7% to 92.9%. For the one-way bike paths SWOV investigated how many users travelled in the right direction, or, vice versa, how many users were ‘wrong-way riders’. The vast majority of users were found to cycle in the right direction: the percentage ranged from 94.8% to 99.5%. As regards the interaction between bike path users in terms of overtaking manoeuvres, a wide distribution was found in the percentages of the bike path users that looked over their shoulder when overtaking. This is also partly due to the fact that only few overtaking situations occurred in The Hague. Averaged over all locations, only 20% of bike path users looked over the shoulder when overtaking. Three conflicts occurred during the observation period. None of these conflicts resulted in injury or damage; all those involved could continue their way after the conflict. When this data is transposed to the number of conflicts during an entire year, it may be concluded that countless conflicts of this type will occur every year. On the basis of this data, it is not possible to say how often these conflicts will develop into crashes with more serious consequences. The conclusion can be drawn that some of the observed bike paths are ‘busy’, meaning that they are too narrow for the traffic volume. There is t diversity to some extent, but the ordinary bicycle is still the norm. In some ways the behaviour on busy bike paths is undesirable; one in five cyclists or light-moped riders is using his mobile phone while driving and four in five cyclists or light-moped riders overtake without looking over their shoulder. This study could not determine whether busyness and behaviour also affect safety.
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