Mobility Modelling
Lecture 7 - Bike Mobility Modelling
1 April 2024
Mozhgan Pourmoradnasseri, Ph.D.
What did the first practical bike look like?
Car ownership in eight European countries per 1000 inhabitants, 1920–2005
Oldenziel, R., & de la Bruhèze, A. A. (2011). Contested spaces: Bicycle lanes in urban Europe, 1900-1995. Transfers, 1(2), 29-49.
Pucher, J., & Buehler, R. (2008). Making cycling irresistible: lessons from the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. Transport reviews, 28(4), 495-528.Bicycle share of trips in Europe, North America and Australia
demographics of Bicycle trips in Europe, North America and Australia
Inverse trends in cycling fatality rates and annual kilometers cycled per inhabitant in the Netherlands (1950–2005).
Pucher, J., & Buehler, R. (2008). Making cycling irresistible: lessons from the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. Transport reviews, 28(4), 495-528.What is your definition of bikeability?
Castañon, U. N., & Ribeiro, P. J. (2021). Bikeability and emerging phenomena in cycling: Exploratory analysis and review. Sustainability, 13(4), 2394.
bikeability definition
Demand-driven design of bicycle networks
Steinacker, C., Storch, D. M., Timme, M., & Schröder, M. (2022). Demand-driven design of bicycle infrastructure networks for improved urban bikeability. Nature Computational Science, 2(10), 655-664.For the design of bike path networks, three major constraints include:
- budget constraints, which limit the total length of bike paths due to, for example, construction or maintenance costs.
- bike path networks have to support the mobility demand and enable fast travel between frequented locations without large detours.
- bike path networks should also enable safe travel of cyclists along highly frequented routes.
Graph representation of street network
- Nodes are intersections
- Edges are road segments
perceived distance: \(l_{ij}=l_{ij}^{street} p_{ij}\)
\(l_{ij}^{street}\): actual length
If bike lane: \(p_{ij}=1\), otherwise: \(p_{ij}>1\)
Cyclists choose their route based on the shortest path between their origin \(i\) and destination \(j\), minimizing the perceived trip distance.
Cyclist route choice model; balance speed and safety
a, If all major streets have bike paths, cyclists choose the most direct route (1).
b, If only some major streets have bike paths, cyclists avoid busy roads without a bike path and may prefer a short detour (2).
c, If none of the streets have dedicated bike infrastructure, cyclists balance the distance and safety of their route choices and may prefer long detours (3) via low-traffic residential streets to more direct routes with high car traffic.
Cyclists choose the most direct path to keep the physical distance of their trip as short as possible but accept detours to avoid busy streets and use bike paths or low-traffic residential streets as alternative routes.
Bike network generation
Which street segments should be included in bike network?
Start with a complete bike network. Remove road segments one by one until you get a network with no bike lane. A sequence of networks is obtained from the algorithm.
Algorithm:
- Start with the full bike network.
- Remove the least important road segment.
- Adjust penalty function.
- Adjust demand distribution.
- Stop if all bike lanes are removed.
- Otherwise, go to step 2.
Input data:
- street network \(G_{street}\),
- penalty factors \(p_{ij}\) for each street segment not equipped with a bike path
- demand distribution \(n_{ij}\)
- cyclists’ route choice model.
Case study; Dresden and Hamburg
Street networks and bike-sharing demand in Dresden and Hamburg.
Hamburg usage patterns indicate spatially homogeneous all-to-all demand.
Dresden usage patterns indicate few-to-few demand; dominance of trips between the university and main train station.
Algorithmic generation of bike path networks
a,d, Bike path networks generated by the algorithm (blue) with the same total length as all of the primary and secondary streets
b,e,Networks for the scenario in which only the primary and secondary streets (as OSM) are equipped with bike paths (black).
c,f, Comparisons between both networks. The networks generated by the algorithm largely coincide with the primary–secondary networks (orange edges in c and f).
A small fraction of bike paths with a small relative length of λ > 0.1 is sufficient to achieve more than 50% of the maximal bikeability in both cities.
Demand-driven design of bike path networks improves bikeability
Tartu
- Only 30% of the total length of the roads are designated bike lanes.
- However, the trip trajectories’ frequencies indicate that 65% of the bike trip load is on the existing bike lanes.
Power of the Data in the Analysis and Evaluation of Bicycle-sharing Integration in an Urban Ecosystem: a Case Study in Tartu City
H. Tera, M. Pourmoradnasseri, A. Hadachi IEEE MT-ITS 2023
What are your key takeaways?
What surprised you?
WATCH THESE VIDEOS
Policies and innovative measures to promote safe and convenient cycling.
- Facilities (lane, parking, shortcuts)
- Coordination with public transport
- Traffic education
- Traffic law
Cycling promotion actions
- Access to bikes
- Bike trip planning
- Public awareness campaigns
- Public participation in bike planning
Policies that encourage cycling indirectly
- Automobile speed limitations in cities
- Road and parking capacity limitations
- Taxation of automobile ownership and use
- Strict land use planning policies
The key to the success of cycling policies in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany is the coordinated implementation of the multi-faceted, mutually reinforcing set of policies. It is precisely that double-barrelled combination of ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ policies that make cycling so irresistible.
Pucher, J., & Buehler, R. (2008). Making cycling irresistible: lessons from the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. Transport reviews, 28(4), 495-528.making cycling irresistible
Ghent;
Changing the Whole Circulation Plan Overnight: a Strong Political Decision
“You can’t become a cycling city, if you don’t say something about cars. In order to increase the number of cyclists and develop a bicycle culture, it’s necessary to take some anti-car measures. If we get rid of the through traffic, you get fewer cars, more space for pedestrians and cyclists, and infrastructure gets an extra value.”
Filip Watteeuw, the Deputy Mayor for Mobility, Public Space & Urban Planning in Ghent
