Observational study on multi-type conflicts between passengers and cyclists at the bus stop – A case study in Nanjing

Abstract

Dedicated cycleway is usually used to keep cyclists away from motorised vehicles in some countries like China. As a result, potential traffic conflicts between bus passengers and cyclists are frequently observed, which lead to potential safety issues for both passengers and cyclists. To our best knowledge, such conflicts and potential safety risk at the bus stop have received rare investigation. More specifically, multi-type conflicts caused by passengers converging from different directions with heterogeneous route choices lack proper research. To fill the gap, this study aims to investigate interactions and conflicts between bus passengers and cyclists. Unobtrusive observations and data collection are conducted by video recordings at a typical bus stop in Nanjing CBD, China. Trajectories of passengers and cyclists are extracted to analyse their interactions, conflicts, and potential safety risks. Lag-time and time-to-collision are adopted as indicators to evaluate the cycleway congestion and severity degree of conflicts, respectively. Multiple influential factors are analysed to evaluate their impacts to congestion and safety risk at a bus stop. The analysis results show that high density of passengers and cyclists, the behaviour of passengers walking along the right side of cycleway, and the interaction between passengers and cyclists crossing from behind or side will increase safety risk. The research findings suggest that bus stop layout design should consider clear view for crossing passengers and passing cyclists; sufficient space should be provided for waiting passengers; and crosswalk should be designed properly to guide passengers to cross cycleway and protect cyclists’ and passengers’ safety.