FHWA-GA-16-1439

Tech Report

Final report

Georgia. Dept. of Transportation. Office of Materials & Research

Effort to improve the bicycle route network using crowdsourced data is a powerful means

of incorporating citizens in infrastructure improvement decisions, which will improve

livability by maximizing the benefit of the bicycle infrastructure funding and

empowering citizens to be more active in transportation decisions. This research

developed a free, GPS-enabled smartphone application to collect socio-demographic and

route data of cyclists in Atlanta. The crowdsourced data were then used to model the

factors influencing bicycle route choices of different types of cyclists as defined by their

perceived safety and comfort with a facility. Finally, this research refined a quality-of-service

measure for bicyclists based on the perceived level of traffic stress (LTS) that the

users attach to the facility. The developed quality-of-service measure can be used by

transportation professionals to compare alternative roadway and bikeway designs using

quantifiable variables such as speed limit, traffic volume, and number of through lanes.

PDF

US Transportation Collection