Empirical and modelling contributions of the BikeZ-ETH project towards the understanding of mass cycling traffic dynamics

Abstract

The rise in urban cycling is a promising avenue for improving both sustainability and public health in future cities. The BikeZ-ETH project seeks to deepen the understanding of cyclists’ behaviour overall and, more specifically, to provide quantitative tools to evaluate, from a traffic engineering standpoint, how large-scale and massive cycling influences urban transport systems. Despite existing research, current knowledge on macroscopic bicycle flow dynamics and microscopic cycling behaviour is still lacking, signalling the need for high-resolution empirical trajectory data. To bridge this gap, BikeZ-ETH has assembled a dataset from naturalistic and controlled experiments conducted at several locations in Zurich (Switzerland) using drone-based observations. Additionally, a microscopic bicycle model built on SUMO is being actively developed to better simulate cycling by incorporating all its key characteristics, as well as interactions with other road users.