Professional Documents
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Assessment of the
impact of cyclists on
heterogeneous traffic
David Carrignon, Colin Buchanan
Heterogeneous traffic conditions are normally because of the rise in the number of two-wheelers. calibration is needed, it shows that cyclists and
associated with some developing countries but they This paper describes a first attempt to model two- powered two-wheelers could become two new
are becoming more common in Central London wheelers in London using VISSIM. While more stakeholders in the traffic modelling process.
MODELLING TWO-WHEELERS IN VISSIM while pedal cycles would be expected to use lateral gaps
Central London traffic conditions are changing! In recent in traffic and were given a PCU value of 0.2. In a context
years, pedal cycles and powered two-wheelers have been where powered two-wheelers would not respect lane dis-
encouraged as a convenient alternative to overcrowded cipline, their PCU value should therefore be expected to
public transport and to traffic congestion, and it has be closer to 0.2.
worked. Today, engineers doing traffic models in the
square mile and the surrounding areas are faced with a new HETEROGENEOUS TRAFFIC
challenge because the success of this alternative form of Heterogeneous traffic conditions combine significant ve-
transport has generated heterogeneous traffic conditions. hicle performance discrepancies and a lack of lane disci-
Traditional traffic engineering theory looking into the pline. In most places in London, the volume of cyclists
impact of cyclists and motorcyclists usually assumes a and motorcyclists is not sufficient to impact traffic condi-
low or a very low proportion of two-wheelers and homo- tions and motorists tend to respect lane discipline quite
geneous traffic conditions. In the United Kingdom, the well. In some places of Central London however, this is
Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) published in 1986 a no longer the case. It is not that cars, buses and lorries
study titled ‘the prediction of saturation flows for road have changed their driving habits, but the rise in two-
junctions controlled by traffic signals’. This study, more wheelers is changing traffic conditions. Author’s details:
commonly known as RR67, sets the standard in terms of Heterogeneous traffic conditions are usually perceived David Carrignon is
saturation flow calculation in the UK. PCU values were as frustrating for motorists, unpleasant for vulnerable Principal traffic
calculated by the method of headway ratios on a lane- users and generally unsafe. The discrepancy in vehicle engineer at Colin
specific basis. It is therefore estimated by dividing the av- performance leads drivers to be frustrated by vehicles Buchanan and can be
erage headway associated with a given vehicle type by with lower performance and the usage of lateral gaps sig- contacted by email at
that for light vehicles. nificantly increases the amount of information a driver david.carrignon@
In this key document, motorcycles were assumed to re- has to deal with. Motorcycles are usually at the high end cbuchanan.co.uk
spect lane discipline and were given a PCU value of 0.4, of vehicle performance whilst pedal cycles are at the low
end. Both vehicle types have been monitored and ob- dard saturation flow measurement at a signalised stopline
served not to be respecting lane discipline. at a saturated approach. As mentioned above, the main
In many countries with large volumes of cyclists, the difference is the omission of two-wheelers. This of course
solution of mandatory cycle lanes on the carriageway was reduces the saturation flow recorded when there is large
adopted. If you compare two segregated lanes, one for cy- concentration of two-wheelers.
clists only and one for motorised vehicles only these two
roads would have a perceived safer environment and a VISSIM measurement options
higher capacity than the same two lanes with heteroge- Once the VSF values were recorded, a method had to be
neous traffic conditions. This example however assumes developed to replicate this measurement in VISSIM.
for fast moving motorised traffic, comparatively slow Headway values between vehicles at a stopline can be ob-
moving cyclists, and ignores junction capacity issues. In tained from the software using a special evaluation file.
Central London, motorised vehicles are relatively slow, This file is usually the basis of the saturation flow calibra-
cyclists are surprisingly fast and space for such segregated tion in VISSIM in homogeneous traffic conditions. Em-
infrastructure is scarce. pirical results shows that a headway of 2.5 seconds is a
good indicator for the end of saturation and that a mea-
PARLIAMENT SQUARE surement should only be recorded from the third vehicle
Colin Buchanan was commissioned by Transport for Lon- passing the stopline.
don (TfL) to undertake traffic models as part of a regenera- Because two-wheelers are using lateral gaps, the head-
tion project of Parliament Square in Central London. A set way measurement output file became unusable as we
of traffic models were developed including one using VIS- could not distinguish cyclists and motorcyclists from
SIM micro-simulation software. Following this commis- other vehicles. The development of an Excel VBA pro-
sion, the London Cycling Centre of Excellence requested gramme enabled us to extract the following information:
further research using this model to assess the impact of cy- • The headway of each vehicle crossing a stopline dur-
clists on the general traffic in Central London. ing the green time
In most cases, the Directorate of Transport Operations • The PCU value of the vehicle attached to a particular
(DTO), part of TfL, advises excluding two-wheelers from headway
micro-simulation models. For this project however, pedal
cycles and motorcycles had to be represented while re- With the PCU value and the headway, it becomes pos-
maining fully compliant with DTO guidelines. sible to derive the VSF. The difficulty consists in identify-
The DTO modelling guidelines version 2 includes re- ing the end of saturation, as 2.5 seconds was not suitable
quirements for micro-simulation models. These require- anymore as it would lead to too few records. Nine cases
ments are mainly on junction turning counts, car jour- have therefore been detailed to identify the end of satura-
ney times and saturation flow. In this case turning counts tion.
and car journey time did not require a change in model- • Case 1 – A Car or an LGV preceded by a Car or an LGV
ling habits, but the saturation flow did. The headway has to be less than 2.5s
Unaware of where the project would lead, the incep- • Case 2 – A Car or an LGV preceded by an HGV or a Bus
tion meeting threw up an interesting debate on the issue The headway has to be less than 5s
of two-wheelers. One side was adamant they would have • Case 3 – A Car or an LGV preceded by a Bicycle or a
no impact, as it is what the theory tells us. The other side Motorbike
was unconvinced. This initial discussion led to a decision The headway has to be less than 2s
which proved invaluable. Site visits recorded the satura- • Case 4 – An HGV or a Bus preceded by a Car or an LGV
tion flow omitting two-wheelers, as if they would be in- The headway has to be less than 5s
visible. Classified counts were available, Vehicular Satura- • Case 5 – An HGV or a Bus preceded by a HGV or a Bus
tion Flow (VSF), so two-wheelers could be assimilated The headway has to be less than 5s
into an environmental constraint! As shown later, this • Case 6 – An HGV or a Bus preceded by a Bicycle or a
decision was the key to the success in modelling two- Motorbike
wheelers. The headway has to be less than 2s
• Case 7 – A Bicycle or a Motorbike car preceded by a Car
Figure 1: VEHICULAR SATURATION FLOW (VSF) or an LGV
Overtaking issue Survey method The headway has to be less than 2.5s
The Vehicular Saturation Flow site measurement is a stan- • Case 8 – A Bicycle or a Motorbike car preceded by a
HGV or a Bus
The headway has to be less than 5s
• Case 9 – A Bicycle or a Motorbike car preceded by a Bi-
cycle or a Motorbike
Two-Wheeler The headway has to be less than 1s
DRIVING BEHAVIOUR
Lane 3 2 1 TfL DTO very usefully keeps an up-to-date VISSIM tem-
plate which includes the most suitable parameters for
London. This template is the usual starting point and this Position on street (cyclists
model was no exception. tend to go closer to the
In order to allow two-wheelers to overtake and be over- kerb to overtake other
vehicles on the left).
taken within the same lane, two new link types were cre-
ated; one for single lane roads and one for multiple lane
roads. These link types helped reproduce the usage of lat-
eral gaps and produced acceptable driving behaviour at
this stage.
The difficulty with this setup is that the lane width is
Figure 2:
becoming an important factor which meant that the Cycle position in relation
geometry of the links in VISSIM are having an influence to the kerb
on driving behaviour. This was new, and had to be cali-
brated.
Through trial and error, the lateral distance parameter
was eventually calibrated which determines if a two- Position in VISSIM (the
wheeler decides to use a gap or not. Although very good Kerb edge of the vehicle plus
the appropriate lateral
results were being achieved, this new method affected the
distance)
stability of the results.