The impact of automated vehicles on cyclists’ safety in urban areas

Abstract

Cycling, whether it boosts people’s health and fitness or contributes to a cleaner environment, it will continue being a non-attractive mode choice where users have to interact with motorized vehicles. Urban areas and city centers are often characterized with narrow steers without dedicated cycling facilities with increased risk of potential conflicts between cyclists and cars. On the other hand, the new generation of road vehicles i.e. connected and autonomous, automated, driverless etc. promises a safer road environment by taking the human factor out of the driving task and enabling more space for other road users. The objective of this study is to assess the effect of the anticipated implementation of automated vehicles (AVs) on cyclist’s safety in urban areas. Since their deployment is still in its first steps and empirical data is not yet available, the microscopic traffic flow simulation software PTV Vissim combined with the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM) were utilized. The road network used for this analysis was generated based on a real study case in a medium-sized city in Belgium, where narrow streets in the city center are shared in many occasions with all types of road users. The findings of the analysis shows that AVs hold the potential to reduce the number of conflicts in urban areas, although further research in geometric road design implications is required to enhance their operation. The main contribution of this work is to investigate potential indirect benefits of AVs on cyclists as existing research mainly focuses on traffic performance gains of the new technology.