Abstract
Urban cycling is a sustainable transport mode that many cities are promoting. However, few cities are taking advantage of geospatial technologies to represent and analyse cycling mobility based on the behavioural patterns and difficulties faced by cyclists. This study analyses a geospatial dataset crowdsourced by urban cyclists using an experimental, mobile geo-game. Fifty-seven participants recorded bicycle trips during one week periods in three cities. By aggregating them, we extracted not only the cyclists’ preferred streets but also the frictions faced during cycling. We successfully identified 284 places potentially having frictions: 71 in Münster, Germany; 70 in Castelló, Spain; and 143 in Valletta, Malta. At such places, participants recorded bicycle segments at lower speeds indicating a deviation from an ideal cycling scenario. We describe the potential frictions inhibiting bicycle commuting with regard to the distance to bicycle paths, surrounding infrastructure, and location in the urban area.
Highlights
Bicycling is an excellent complement to urban transport modes, and so many cities worldwide have created campaigns to encourage commuter cycling [1,2]
To define the frictions that inhibit bicycle commuting, we considered the scenario in which a cyclist faced an obstacle or a circumstance that forced her to either slow down, walk the bike or stop cycling
The first achievement of this study was identifying a combination of geospatial technologies which served to track urban cyclist location and to identify 1605 bicycle trips and 284 friction cases potentially inhibiting bicycle commuting
Summary
Bicycling is an excellent complement to urban transport modes, and so many cities worldwide have created campaigns to encourage commuter cycling [1,2]. Due to the high availability of mobile devices equipped with location-based technologies (such as sensors for global navigation systems), it is easier to collect cycling data and, understand spatial mobility patterns. These technologies are capable of identifying position and behavioural patterns and the obstacles or frictions forcing cyclists to deviate from their desired routes or, worse, never begin commuting by bike. The impact of obstacles, or what we term “frictions”, on bicycle commuting has been largely unexplored in the research literature
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