Bicycle conflict modeling on non-motorized paths on suburban college campuses

Abstract

Bicycling is an important way for college students and employees to get around campuses. Colleges are trying to reduce the number of cars on campus to alleviate traffic problems, help protect the environment, and save money on vehicle and parking infrastructure. Because of this, bicycling is a growing mode of commuting on college campuses as well as across the entire country. With a rise in bicycling on campuses comes a rise in bicycle collisions with pedestrians walking to and from classes and work. This thesis studies those interactions between bicyclists and pedestrians on non-motorized paths on the University of Delaware campus in Newark, DE. These interactions can be harmless, but also can result in serious injuries to the pedestrian or the bicyclist. ☐ Bicyclist on these paths exhibit different behavior based on the number of pedestrians using the same path. The pedestrian volumes on a college campus drastically fluctuate when classes change and students are leaving academic buildings at the same time. However, during classes, these non-motorized paths can be virtually empty. The difficulty of infrastructure planners on college campuses is to accommodate for these high fluctuations of pedestrians and bicycles. Yet they still need to consider the safety of the users of the paths. This thesis aims to predict the likelihood of a serious bicycle crash on a non-motorized path based on the characteristics of the path.