Impact of bicycle traffic on the macroscopic fundamental diagram: some empirical findings in Shanghai

Abstract

Interactions between bicycles and cars have attracted increasing attention during recent years. This paper aims to investigate the impact of bicycle traffic on the macroscopic fundamental diagrams (MFDs) for urban car traffic. A Bicycle Congestion Index (BCI)-based MFD relating network bicycle flow and car flow reductions was constructed. A link-based method was proposed to estimate the MFD, considering the spilling behaviors of bicycles at the link level. The results indicate that the effect of bicycle traffic on car MFD varies with different traffic conditions and network features. Compared with car-only roads, it is more efficient to increase network car flow by installing physically separated facilities and reducing the spilling bicycles. To this end, various traffic management strategies may be applied in Shanghai, such as lifting the ban of cyclists on the central city area, building physically connected facilities, and enforcing stricter operational regulations and management on bicycle traffic.

KEYWORDS:

• Macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD)
• car-bicycle interaction
• bicycle traffic
• network level
• spilling behavior

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to warmly thank the five anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments, which significantly improve the quality of this paper. The authors would also like to express their appreciation to Allister Loder and Kaidi Yang from Institute for Transport Planning and Systems (IVT), ETH Zurich for their valuable suggestions and comments in preparing this manuscript. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Nature Science Foundation of China [grant number 71971138]; Humanities and Social Science Research Project, Ministry of Educatoin, China [grant number 19YJAZH077].