Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research最新文献

Successful and safe management of interactions between cyclists and motorized vehicles often includes implicit communication, such as vehicle motion signals. While the introduction of automated vehicles (AVs) is anticipated to increase safety for cyclists by eliminating human error, it is still unclear how they should communicate implicitly in complex traffic scenarios. The turning maneuver constitutes a complex and ambiguous scenario, as it involves vehicle deceleration even when there is no intention to halt for the cyclist, proceeding straight ahead. A video-based laboratory study incorporating a bicycle setup examined the influence of four driving dynamics and automation status on cyclists' risk anticipation, perceived safety, and intention to continue to cycle through an intersection. Forty-two participants viewed videos of an oncoming vehicle making a left turn at an intersection from the perspective of a cyclist traveling straight through the intersection. The results indicated that participants perceived early and continuous braking of the vehicle ("passive yield") as the most favorable approach (reduced risk anticipation, higher perceived safety, and greater intention to continue to cycle through the intersection), even when compared to later but stronger braking ("active yield"). The objectively riskiest maneuver that would result in a collision ("collision") was evaluated as the least desirable. A rule-violating yet objectively safe maneuver (accelerating to exit the conflict area before the cyclist; "no yield") led to increased risk anticipation but not to lower perceived safety or reduced intention to continue to cycle through the intersection compared to active yield. The displayed automation status had minimal influence overall, although participants in the passive yield condition expressed greater uncertainty regarding their intention to continue to cycle through the intersection in interactions with AVs compared to MVs. It appears that natural driving dynamics exhibited by "good" human drivers could represent a promising approach to ensuring the safety and comfort of cyclists in interactions with AVs. Here, early and continuous braking is preferable to later and stronger braking.

Worldwide, the gender gap in urban cycling is considerable, with most cyclists being young to middle-aged men. In the current study, we first capture the suite of cycling barriers facing women before empirically investigating whether and how much three natural barriers (inclement weather, hilliness, and darkness) impact female users of bikesharing systems. For the analysis, we spatially integrate gender for more than 200 million bikesharing trips with fine-grained weather, gradient, and sunset/sunrise data. Computing a suite of the generalized additive models for ten cities worldwide covering a period of 14 years, we find that wind and precipitation disincentivise cycling, and more so for women than for men. Similarly, steeper gradients are a significant barrier for female bikeshare users for many cities. In every city, women make fewer trips in the dark (i.e., before sunrise and after sunset) compared to men. In higher-cycling cities, regardless of natural barriers, cycling declines less with age for women compared to other cities. To overcome the barriers presented by inclement weather, hilliness, and darkness we recommend (a) partial electrification of bikesharing fleets, (b) reduced exposure along bicycle paths (through manufactured shelters or tree canopies), and (c) adequate nighttime lighting along cycling paths. In the spirit of open science, all data and code on which this paper is based have been provided on Mendeley: https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/vmy42hywwx/1.

Over the past decade, e-bikes have become increasingly popular, sparking interest in their potential replacement for car use and benefit for the environment. However, many studies on e-bike development and their substitution effects exhibit limitations. These include a lack of modeling on e-bike trend development, inadequate assessments of their impact on national-level mobility, a predominant focus on commuting, and a lack of foresight into future e-bike substitution effects. Our research introduces an innovative approach to model e-bike development, employing a multilevel Richards growth curve model fitted within a hierarchical Bayesian framework using the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) method. Further, we incorporate an intention-based method to delve into the potential of e-bikes in stimulating sustainable mobility in the Netherlands. Our findings highlight an ongoing increase in e-bike distance share, with marked gender and generational differences in growth patterns. Notably, women have higher e-bike usage than men, and this gap is narrowing for older age groups while widening among younger demographics, suggesting that younger people may adopt e-bike usage differently than older generation. E-bike ownership strongly reduces the conventional bicycle use and, to a lesser extent, car and public transport use, especially for commuting. This study provides insight into whether and to what extent e-bikes substitute for car use and other modes of transportation, and how the expected growth in e-bike use in coming years may impact national mobility in the Netherlands.

Cycling is widely regarded as a healthy and sustainable transport option in urban environments. However, there is an emergent need to understand how cycling in countries like Brazil, can be encouraged and supported, particularly among different sections of the population. This study investigates social-psychological antecedents of cycling within the Brazilian context using a large-scale dataset to verify the appropriateness of a model based on the extended Theory of Planned Behaviour (e-TPB). In-person interviews were conducted with people living in three large Brazilian cities – Brasília (n=1107), Florianópolis (n=1084), and Porto Alegre (n=1105) using a questionnaire including nine items from the e-TPB to measure attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioural control, intention, cycling behaviour, and habit. Multigroup analysis verified the model fit and invariance in structural weights by gender. Age and gender were revealed to be the only sociodemographic variables with significant influence on the components’ mean scores, with gender exhibiting the strongest influence. We concluded that the e-TPB allows us to explain cycling behaviour among this sample of the Brazilian population and that it is particularly sensitive to (a) other people's influence (b) personal habit (c) perceived behavioural control (d) belief in the ability to change one’s behaviour. Women were less likely to cycle and were less likely to be influenced by social-psychological components that could encourage this type of activity. Thus, we conclude that understanding the social and cognitive determinants of cycling can help to design more targeted policies for different sections of society.

Using Metropolitan Manila in the Philippines as a case study, we investigate how the Covid pandemic has opened up a window of opportunity for the de-legitimization of dominant storylines marginalizing cycling and the legitimization of alternative storylines favoring the mainstreaming of bicycles in urban transport systems. Storylines are condensed summaries of complex narratives deployed as convenient shorthand in discussions. Through a content analysis of posts from ten Facebook groups by cycling advocates, we identify six pairs of contending storylines and their key narratives. Furthermore, through semi-formal interviews and an online survey, we determine the level of agreement and the consensus around agreement with the content of the storylines among a limited sample of respondents representing various backgrounds. Our results suggest that pre-pandemic, delegitimizing storylines resonate more strongly among the respondents. Peri-pandemic, a positive shift has occurred in the social representation of bicycles in Metropolitan Manila, as indicated by the emergence of legitimizing storylines. This does not mean, however, that this positive shift is complete and not challenged anymore. Though a rapid legitimization of pro-cycling storylines has been observed, there is an ongoing contestation against such legitimization. Whether the peri-pandemic cycling gains can be sustained post-pandemic is an open question.

Bicycle-sharing systems have emerged as a viable transportation alternative in numerous urban areas, owing to their multifaceted benefits. These benefits include reduced transportation expenses, health improvements, and decreased emission levels. While extensive research has been conducted on travel behaviors in shared bicycle systems, there is currently a lack of research on travel behaviors changes with the introduction of e-bikes. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the similarities and differences between e-bike (pedelec) and conventional bicycle use in a bike share system in Richmond City, Virginia.

The results show that pedelecs are generally associated with longer trip distances, shorter trip times, higher speeds, and lower rates of uphill elevation change. The origin–destination analysis considering the business, mixed use, residential, and other uses shows extremely similar trends, with a large number of trips staying within either business or residential locations or mixed use. The roadway use analysis shows that pedelecs are used farther outside of the city than bikes.

Cities allocate dedicated road space to bicycles in favor of active-mode road users. For urban environments with a mass bicycle volume, bicycle traffic congestion is likely to occur. Hence, a thorough understanding of bicycle traffic flow is necessary for the assessment of cycling infrastructure and the development of traffic management strategies considering cycling efficiency. This study aims to investigate bicycle flow characteristics using microscopic traffic simulation. As bicycle flow performance is subject to the non-lane-based movement strategy and the behavioral heterogeneity among cyclists, various scenarios with different microsimulation settings are evaluated. Ultimately, we derive the functional form fundamental diagrams and macroscopic fundamental diagrams using a curve-fitting approach and an analytical method, respectively. Important macroscopic traffic flow parameters, such as capacity, critical speed, critical density, backward wave speed, etc., are estimated. The results show that lane width, overtaking incentive, and desired speed distribution are factors that affect bicycle flow performance. The distinct features of bicycle flow under different traffic states are identified by discussing the simulation outcome and comparing the estimated flow parameters. The findings can be utilized by future research regarding large-scale bicycle traffic flow modeling and control.

With the growing popularity of motorized Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs) for urban travel, there is increasing need to understand the impacts on transportation facility operation. Speed is a critical aspect of vehicle performance, and the lack of robust information on PMD operating speeds hinders facility design, regulation, and policy for safe and comfortable PMD integration. The objectives of this study are 1) to derive operating speed distributions for all Personal Mobility Devices in use on off-street “cycling” facilities in metropolitan Vancouver, Canada, and 2) to determine how PMD speeds are influenced by microenvironment factors including facility type, path grade, weather, and path traffic volume. Classified speed data for 27 PMD types were collected in 4 seasons at 12 sampling locations in Vancouver, Canada. Results from the 25,053 observations show that motorization increases speeds by 3, 10, and 13 km/hr for bicycles, skateboards, and scooters, respectively, which tends to homogenize average speeds across PMD types at around 20–24 km/hr. Motorization also decreases the effect of grade on speed by about 2/3rd. Even with motorization, bicycle and other PMD speeds rarely exceed the regulatory limit of 32 km/hr – except for sit-down electric scooters which have exceptionally high speeds. Scenario analysis indicates that even with large penetration rates of motorized PMD, a 30 km/hr design speed for off-street paths would still be appropriate, although less conservative.

Shared micromobility services including bikeshare and shared e-scooters have proliferated in the U.S., but barriers continue to limit their use by some travelers. Cities and transportation agencies have attempted to overcome access disparities by establishing equity-oriented policy requirements for shared micromobility programs. Yet no clear picture exists of either their prevalence or specific components. To address this gap, we asked and answered two questions: 1) What equity requirements do shared micromobility programs include? and 2) to what extent are programs monitored and evaluated? We collected policy data for 239 shared micromobility programs across the U.S. We focused on equity requirements across three dimensions: process, implementation, and evaluation. We found that 62% of shared micromobility programs had at least one equity requirement, although fewer than half (46%) included more than one, suggesting potential challenges for travelers facing intersectional barriers. Less than one-third of programs (29%) included process-equity requirements for targeted outreach to marginalized or underserved communities. Implementation requirements included smartphone alternative (36% of programs), cash payment compatibility (33%), reduced rates (32%), multilingual services (26%), adaptive vehicles for users with disabilities (5%), and mandated geographic service areas (30%). Finally, while most programs (83%) required data reporting from private companies, far fewer published public-facing evaluation reports (27%) or specified compliance language related to equity (15%). The language and conditions of requirements varied dramatically across programs. Findings reveal implications for transportation policy, including a need for micromobility programs to focus on access and outcomes during program evaluation.

There is a general consensus that children and adolescents should ideally travel to school actively and independently. Yet, in many parts of the world, real and perceived traffic risks represent a major barrier to walking, cycling, or the use of scooters. As the perspectives of children and adolescents on perceived dangers are insufficiently understood, this quantitative-qualitative study compares injury data for 2019–2021 with questionnaires answered by school management (n=40 school managers) and focus-group interviews with students aged 6–17 (n=40) in the city of Freiburg, Germany. The triangulation indicates that a significant number of collisions and injuries in traffic appear to go unreported, and that school routes are characterized by insecurity and perceived dangers. The analysis suggests that perceptions of risk change with age, and in reflection of influences including cognitive ability and motor skills, social environment and attitudes, transport mode, and technology adoption. Results are conceptualized as an incapacity-incapability space, indicating that relative risk exposure is highest for younger children (5–9 years), and for teenagers (12–16 years). Findings have implications for the study of traffic risks, urban design and transport planning and policy.