Understanding interactions between bicyclists and motorists in intersections

Abstract

Especially in urban areas, more people began choosing the bicycle over the car in order to get from point A to point B. On the downside, more bicyclist in the streets resulted in a 50 percent increase of fatalities. Last year, in Germany, bicyclist accounted for twelve percent of all fatalities. Research shows that a major contributing factor to those fatalities is ‘insufficient cooperation’ between cyclists and motorists. Nonetheless, most encounters of bicyclists and motorists neither result in conflicts nor in fatal crashes. In order to investigate interaction patterns between bicyclists and motorists, those road users were observed at a busy intersection in Braunschweig for a period of 10 working days. Situations, recorded at AIM research intersection, in which motorists turned right and bicyclists went straight through the intersection, were analyzed. The goal was to understand the behavior and the underlying mechanism, quantify the observed behavior, and identify objective parameters to map the behavior. As a result, the knowledge may be used to implement strategies and technology that may predict and prevent fatal crashes in intersections.