Environmental impacts of bicycling in urban areas: A micro-simulation approach

Abstract

We develop a microsimulation model of urban transport for a city of a medium size and use it to evaluate the impacts of modal switch to bicycle. An activity-based approach is used to generate daily transportation schedules for several groups of households. We first consider the case of mixed traffic, where the bicycles and cars share the same lanes, and find that a significant modal switch to bicycle has indisputable benefits on road congestion and emissions of pollutant gases. We then consider the development of cycle-paths, where the two modes run on separate lanes, and find that it improves the benefits obtained under mixed traffic. At the same time, our analysis shows that a small modal switch (below 15%) to bicycle does not necessarily produce the expected benefits. This is because in uncongested road sections, the bicycles cause delays to other vehicles.