Cycling through intersections: Situational factors influencing safety

Kurzfassung

Within the past years, a shift in mode of transport has been observed. The popularity of cycling has significantly increased and will increase even more in the time to come. On the downside, cycling is also associated with severe injuries or even fatalities, especially when involved in a crash with a motorized vehicle. In urban areas, one of the most risky situations is crossing an intersection while a motorized vehicle turns right. In an effort to increase road traffic safety of cyclists in intersections, within the framework of EU-funded project XCYCLE, an infrastructural supported cooperative advanced driver assistance system (C-ADAS) will be built in order to increase the safety of cyclists. The objective is to develop an online risk assessment in order to predict critical encounters between motorized vehicles and cyclists online. Therefore, in addition to analyzing objective data, such as trajectories, while approaching the intersection, critical encounters need to be analyzed and described as well as situational factors contributing to the critical situation need to be identified. At the AIM Research Intersection in Braunschweig, trajectory and video data has been collected since fall 2016 and will continue to be collected. Conflicts between motorists and cyclists will be extracted and factors (e.g. weather, daytime, traffic light status, riding in a group or alone) will be identified contributing to safety critical situations. These factors will be incorporated in order to accomplish a sensitive online risk assessment.