Study On The Safety Of Bicycle Transportation At Grade Crossing

Bicycle transportation is the main traffic mode in most of our cities. In all the traffic accidents, bicycle related accidents and its casualties have taken a large proportion; especially at grade crossing, traffic accidents often happen between bicycles and vehicles, which is seriously impaired traffic safety. So it is specially necessary to study the bicycle traffic characteristics at grade crossing, find the key problem, and take proper measures to improve the safety level of bicycle transportation.Domestic and international experience is summarized in the paper, the basic characteristics of bicycle transportation; the current traffic condition in China, the bicycle traffic status, developing trend and its main practical problems are discussed. Then, from the aspect of traffic density, traffic speed, traffic volume, traffic delay, operating characteristics, accident cause and accident type, etc, the bicycle traffic characteristics are researched and analyzed in detail at grade crossing .The traffic conflict at grade crossing is mainly studied, traffic conflict between bicycles and vehicles and its caused reasons are analyzed, the probability model of traffic conflict between bicycles and vehicles is set up. Using the data collected from field survey at Dongdan grade crossing in Beijing, the traffic conflict probability between the straight going bicycle and right turning vehicles is calculated, by the means of the software SPSS and EXCEL, the relational model between bicycle arrival rate and traffic conflict probability, mixed volume is established,. which .provides a quantitative analysis base to improve bicycle transportation safety at grade crossing.Finally, according to the concrete problem coming from grade crossing, from the point of view of signal control, channelization and separation, safety education, the measures how to improve the bicycle transportation safety are researched. The concrete improved measures about Dongdan grade crossing in Beijing is put forward. Finally, in order to evaluate the effects of improvement, the method is introduced which evaluates the benefits of improvemet of grade crossing.