Safer cycling and street design: A guide for policymakers
The study will investigate how to integrate cycling facilities into urban and suburban environments in ways that address the concerns of the 48% of people who are “interested” in cycling, but “concerned” about safety. This group is known as the elusive “interested but concerned” cohort.
It will gather new data on what design features influence or change this cohort’s perception of safe bike-ability. A highly innovative element will be the use of immersive virtual reality technology to test design improvements on study participant’s sense of safety.
Through this approach, the project will mitigate the known weaknesses of stated preference surveys, which have been the mainstay approach for trying to understand cyclists’ preferences for routes and riding environments and to subsequently assist planning new or improved cycling infrastructure.
By using approaches that are also based on behavioural observations, rather than only stated preference approaches, the project is intended to provide Transport for NSW (TfNSW) and other government agencies, with an improved evidence base to be used through the next iteration of cycleway design guidelines.
Participants
Project background
According to previous research undertaken by TfNSW, there should be an increased focus on meeting the needs of the 48% of potential riders who are “interested but concerned” (Cycling Customer Value Proposition Research 2013).
Targeting these potential riders means focusing cycleway design on the aspects that these customers value. Investigating what these aspects are is the key focus of this project.
TfNSW’s current evidence base in this area is as articulated in the TfNSW Cycleway Design Toolbox (2020) which in turn draws on the Cycling Aspects of Austroads Guides (2017 Edition). The Toolbox illustrates good, better and best practice at the NSW government level. Importantly, it also shows how streets might be reconfigured to better achieve desired outcomes.
These guidelines reflect that providing safe, attractive, and supporting environments are essential to encourage cycling. This project is intended to strengthen this evidence base by complementing the use of stated preference surveys. Stated preference surveys have been extensively used to understand cyclists’ preferences for routes and riding environments and to subsequently assist planning new or improved cycling infrastructure.
However, there is a known difference between what people state their particular preference may be, and their actual preference. In a stated preference survey, problems arise with participants’ engagement or responding, based on participants’ own assumptions or other attributes not included in the study design.
Revealed preferences studies, where participants are studied for the actual (i.e. behavioural) decisions, indicate that people’s actual behaviour may be very different – and sometimes completely opposite from – their stated preferences. The study will therefore seek to better understand how potential cyclists make cycling related decisions in a more real context and mitigate the problems that can arise through the sole use of stated preference surveys.
An important component of the research project is the use of virtual reality as a means of evaluating possible design elements (i.e. facilities) for their acceptance by the “interested but concerned” cohort of potential cyclists. The Travel Choice Simulation Laboratory, (TRACSLab), located at UNSW, is a world-first in multi-modal, multi-user transportation visualisation.
The simulator is capable of integrating cycling and driving, with study participants able to cycle or drive through urban transportation systems. By using the simulator and “immersing” study participants in the environment, various design interventions can therefore be evaluated by their impacts of participant behaviours while in the simulated environment. This can be done from both a cyclists and driver perspective.
A range of possible design interventions can therefore be introduced, manipulated and tested for their impact on participant behaviours.
Project objectives
The objectives of this project are to:
- Understand current best practice cycling facility design internationally and locally and to identify the design, transport, and built environment components that influence bike-ability.
- Rigorously and empirically test, validate, and improve these best practice principles in location specific settings within Sydney through creating and testing a simulation / visualisation prototype to understand community (i.e. the interested but concerned cohort) preferences for cycling environments and facilities in order to inform astute investment decisions.
- Use the relevant findings to create an open-source cycling facility classification matrix tool to enhance local and state governments’ active transport planning and designing capabilities.
- Provide TfNSW and other government agencies, with an improved evidence base to develop the next iteration of cycleway design guidelines.
Final report
This project has been completed. A wrap-up article and a downloadable copy of the final report for the project is available at: Safer cycling infrastructure: Design and policy
Watch the webinar
On 23 July 2024 iMOVE held a webinar in which outcomes from this project were presented. Watch a recording of the webinar at: How to encourage active travel uptake
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