Description

Cycling is increasingly advocated as a healthier and more sustainable mode of transportation, as reflected in both scholarly literature and policy initiatives. Nonetheless, the escalation in bicyclist crash fatalities underscores deficiencies in extant roadway designs that inadequately safeguard these vulnerable users. A persistent challenge in the examination of bicyclist safety, behavior, and comfort is the paucity of comprehensive cycling data. To enhance understanding of cyclists' behavioral and physiological responses safely and efficiently, this investigation utilizes a bicycle simulator within an immersive virtual environment (IVE). Off-the-shelf sensors are employed to evaluate cyclists' performance metrics (speed and lane position) and physiological responses (eye tracking and heart rate). Participants navigate a virtual environment scaled to resemble a real-world street with a shared bike lane (sharrows) to evaluate how the introduction of a curbside bike lane and a protected bike lane with flexible delineators affects perceptions of safety, as well as cyclists' behavior and physiological responses. Data collected from 50 participants (across a diverse range of ages and genders) indicate that the protected bike lane design received the highest safety ratings and resulted in the lowest average cycling speed. Both the curbside bike lane and protected bike lane scenarios manifested in more focused gaze patterns than the sharrows scenario, implying that cyclists were more concentrated on the task when biking in designated lanes rather than sharing the roadway with vehicles. Furthermore, heart rate data imply that dedicated bike lanes(curbside or protected) may alleviate cyclists’ stress levels. Female participants exhibited a particular preference for the protected bike lane design.

Publication Date

5-2025

Publication Type

Report

Topic

Active Transportation, Sustainable Transportation and Land Use

Digital Object Identifier

10.31979/mti.2025.2349

MTI Project

2349

Keywords

Non-motorized transportation perceived safety immersive virtual environment (ive) protected bike lanes behavioral analysis

Disciplines

Computer Sciences | Transportation

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