01472416

Component

As a sustainable transport mode, cycling is getting more attention from policy makers and transport planners throughout the world. However, in the Netherlands, and elsewhere, system wide bicycle volume data are lacking. Municipalities in the Netherlands rely on national travel survey data, combined with visual counts. The lack of data on bicycle volumes hampers municipalities to plan and improve bicycle facilities. In the Netherlands, inductive loops for both vehicles and bicycles are present at signalized intersections. In this paper, the authors use data from these loops in the town of Enschede, to examine the actual bicycle volumes. They show that inductive loops can be used when they compare their counts with visual counts at a few signalized intersections. At low to medium bicycle volumes (up to 200 cyclists passing per hour), the detections by the inductive loops comply well with the actual number of cyclists. At higher volumes, the probability increases that two (or more) cyclists are detected as one. This happens because of the reduction of time headways, making two successive cyclists undistinguishable. By assuming a random arrival process within a certain arrival time window, the authors can explain the rate of underestimation at high volumes, and correct for this. The results of this study can be applied by practitioners to convert inductive loop data into bicycle volumes and will be a valuable source of data for road authorities in medium-sized cities in the Netherlands.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ35(3) Bicycle and Pedestrian Data.

01470560

13-3901

English

10p

2013

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Bicycles; Loop detectors; Signalized intersections; Traffic counting; Traffic data; Traffic volume

Enschede (Netherlands)

Operations and Traffic Management; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-3901

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:45PM