Niels Agerholm

An international review of the frequency of single-bicycle crashes (SBCs) and their relation to bicycle modal share

Objectives To study cyclists’ share of transport modes (modal share) and single-bicycle crashes (SBCs) in different countries in order to investigate if the proportion of cyclist injuries resulting from SBCs is affected by variation in modal share. Methods A literature search identified figures (largely from western countries) on SBC casualties who are fatally injured, hospitalised or treated at an emergency department. Correlation and regression analyses were used to investigate how bicycle modal share is related to SBCs. Results On average, 17% of fatal injuries to cyclists are caused by SBCs. Different countries show a range of values between 5% and 30%. Between 60% and 95% of cyclists admitted to hospitals or treated at emergency departments are victims of SBCs. The proportion of all injured cyclists who are injured in SBCs is unrelated to the share of cycling in the modal split. The share of SBC casualties among the total number of road crash casualties increases proportionally less than the increase in bicycle modal share. Conclusions While most fatal injuries among cyclists are due to motor vehicle–bicycle crashes, most hospital admissions and emergency department attendances result from SBCs. As found in previous studies of cyclists injured in collisions, this study found that the increase in the number of SBC casualties is proportionally less than the increase in bicycle modal share.

Pay as You Speed, ISA with incentives for not speeding: A case of test driver recruitment

The Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) project we describe in this article is based on Pay as You Drive principles. These principles assume that the ISA equipment informs a driver of the speed limit, warns the driver when speeding and calculates penalty points. Each penalty point entails the reduction of a 30% discount on the drivers car insurance premium, which therefore produced the name, Pay as You Speed. The ISA equipment consists of a GPS-based On Board Unit with a mobile phone connection to a web server. The project was planned for a three-year test period with 300 young car drivers, but it never succeeded in recruiting that number of drivers. After several design changes, the project eventually went forward with 153 test drivers of all ages. This number represents approximately one thousandth of all car owners in the proving ground of North Jutland in Denmark. Furthermore the project was terminated before its scheduled closing date. This article describes the project with an emphasis on recruitment efforts and the projects progress. We include a discussion of possible explanations for the failure to recruit volunteers for the project and reflect upon the general barriers to using ISA with ordinary drivers.

Intelligent speed adaptation in company vehicles

This paper describes an intelligent speed adaptation project for company vehicles. The intelligent speed adaptation function in the project is both information and incentive, which means that the intelligent speed adaptation equipment gives a warning as well as penalty points if the driver is speeding. Each month the driver with that monthpsilas fewest points wins an award. The paper presents results concerning speed attitude on the first three of a planned 12 months test period. In all 26 vehicles and 51 drivers from six companies participate in the project. The key result is that speeding is reduced from 18.7% to 7.4% on urban roads with a speed limit of 50 km/h while it is reduced from 18.9% to 4.7% on rural roads with a speed limit of 80 km/h.

Accident risk and factors regarding non-motorised road users: a central road safety challenge with deficient data

Almost half of all traffic fatalities worldwide are non-motorised road users (NMRUs). In Denmark, the number has increased with about 30%. NMRUs consist of about 63% of the injured in the Danish traffic. Much has been done to reduce the number of injured NMRUs with counterparts, while little effort is put into the reduction of the vast majority of the accidents, NMRU single accidents, which are about 90% of all injured NMRUs. There are no efficient tools available to reduce this number. A significantly better designed, maintained, and illuminated road network would most likely help. However, that is expensive and not possible for most road authorities. Despite this, the challenges with NMRUs in single accidents need more attention, if road safety is to be improved. The situation in Denmark is more than likely the case in many other countries as well; although the documentation is scarce.

Visual analysis of speed bumps using floating car dataset

ABSTRACT The analysis of traffic movements in urban populations is important for safety measures to control speed when the presence of pedestrians is high. Most of the studies in the traffic domain are directed towards statistical analyses of speed, also to measure the physical parameters of bumps on roads, and effect of speed-calming measures. However, less is known about the effectiveness of varying intervals between speed-calming measures and their influence on the driving behaviour of vehicles from a spatio-temporal perspective. To fill this gap and understand these aspects, in this research we propose visual analytics techniques. To explore the influence of the distance between bumps on speed change behaviour of vehicles in relation to the permitted speed limit, several use case studies were selected with the close cooperation of a traffic expert. The aim was first to study the influence of the speed bumps on speeding, and then establish any connection between speed bump intervals and vehicle speeding in the selected use cases. The results of our investigation did reveal minor differences and influence of a time aspect on traffic volume and speed development. Also, differences in actual speed of the vehicles in relation to the distance of installed bumps were detected.

The Relationship between Road Characteristics and Speed Collected from Floating Car Data

Speed is of great importance to the safety level of a road. Speed choice is strongly influenced by the road environment and the drivers’ assessment of safe speed level at a specific location. This paper presents an analysis of the relationships between speed and road characteristics and speed and driver characteristics. The analysis is based on big data on speed and driver characteristics combined with data on road characteristics on 49 secondary rural two-lane roads in Denmark. Data is modelled using multivariate linear regression. The results show a primarily influence from road and shoulder width, the extent of road markings and the section lengths on speed. Secondly, they also show the presence of woodland and intersections influencing speed as do gender, age of vehicle and time of day.