Experimental study on mixed traffic flow of bicycles and pedestrians

Authors

  • Ning Guo School of Automotive and Transportation Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China
  • Rui Jiang Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China
  • SC Wong Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
  • Qing-Yi Hao School of Mathematics and Computational Science, Anqing Normal University, Anqing, China
  • Shu-Qi Xue Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China
  • Yao Xiao Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, China
  • Chao-Yun Wu School of Mathematics and Computational Science, Anqing Normal University, Anqing, China

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17815/CD.2020.108

Keywords:

mixed flow, pedestrian flow, bicycle flow, lane formation

Abstract

The mixed flow of bicycles and pedestrians is frequently observed on bicycle-pedestrian-shared roads. Unfortunately, studies on dynamics of this kind of mixed flow are very limited. This paper reports an experimental study of this kind of mixed traffic flow with equal numbers of pedestrians and cyclists asked to walk/ride in a ring-shaped track. In the uni-/bi-directional flow scenarios, pedestrians and bicycles moved in the same/opposite direction. Under both scenarios, bicycles and pedestrians formed their own lanes. Pedestrians walked in the inner lane and cyclists rode in the outer lane. Widths of both the pedestrian lane and the bicycle lane were more uniform in bidirectional flow. The pedestrian flow rate is larger in the unidirectional flow scenario than in the bidirectional flow scenario. In contrast, at low densities, the bicycle flow rate is essentially the same under the two scenarios. When the density is large, the bicycle flow rate becomes larger in the unidirectional flow scenario. Comparing the two modes, pedestrian flow rate is smaller/larger than bicycle flow rate at small/large densities under both scenarios.

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Published

12.08.2020

How to Cite

Guo, N., Jiang, R., Wong, S., Hao, Q.-Y., Xue, S.-Q., Xiao, Y., & Wu, C.-Y. (2020). Experimental study on mixed traffic flow of bicycles and pedestrians. Collective Dynamics, 5, 490–492. https://doi.org/10.17815/CD.2020.108

Issue

Section

Proceedings of Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2018