Emprical Study on Bicycle Traffic Flow at signalized Intersections

The share of bicyclists in urban traffic is on the rise. Depending on the intersection layout, the infrastructure type and bicycle traffic volume, bicyclists are expected to ride in mixed traffic streams on the roadway or on dedicated bicycle infrastructure, including bicycle lanes and separated bicycle paths. In this paper, bicycle traffic flow is assessed using empirical data, focusing on the differences between various intersection approach typologies, including bicycle boxes, bicycle lanes or separated bicycle paths. Video data is collected at eight intersections in Germany with varying types of intersection approach layouts. Specific bicycle traffic performance parameters are calculated from trajectory data extracted from the videos. The results are used to derive conclusions concerning the role of infrastructure design on bicycle traffic flow at signalized intersections. The available width of the bicycle infrastructure rather than the type of infrastructure is found to be a decisive factor for statistically significant differences of the evaluated bicycle traffic performance indicators: the bicycle queue density, average queue dissipation time and the time required for the first bicycle to cross the stop line. For the derived desired speed, however, both the infrastructure width and the infrastructure type are found to influence the average observed values significantly in the pairwise comparison results. Finally, the occupancy duration of the conflict area between bicyclists and motor vehicles is found to be a linear increasing function of the number of bicyclists in the platoon.     «

The share of bicyclists in urban traffic is on the rise. Depending on the intersection layout, the infrastructure type and bicycle traffic volume, bicyclists are expected to ride in mixed traffic streams on the roadway or on dedicated bicycle infrastructure, including bicycle lanes and separated bicycle paths. In this paper, bicycle traffic flow is assessed using empirical data, focusing on the differences between various intersection approach typologies, including bicycle boxes, bicycle lanes o...     »