Analysis of free-riding behaviour using instrumented bicycles

Abstract: The use of bicycle as a transportation mode has increased in popularity during the last four decades. The reasons that could explain why the use of bicycles have increased in popularity are many. Nevertheless, three possible reasons for the increasing in popularity are because of the benefit in terms of health, reduced motorised traffic congestion, and air pollution. As bicycle traffic flows increase, the evaluating of the bicycle traffic infrastructure will become more important for bicyclist safety, and comfort. One possible evaluating tool for bicycle traffic is microscopic traffic simulation and one key component is the free-riding. The free-riding is a bicyclist that is not interacting with other bicyclist, and other road users during a ride. Furthermore, to develop a suitable simulation model of the free-riding needs data and a possible methodology for data collection on the free-riding is using instrumented bicycles. Therefore, this thesis will investigate a methodology that can be used to collect, process, and analyse data for two bicyclist and their interactions with the infrastructure. The methodology for data collection using instrumented bicycle includes a pre-defined travel route, two types of bicycles as a conventional, and an electric bicycle. Additionally, the equipment is used in the methodology should be easy to switch between bicycles to keep the behaviour as natural as possible for bicyclists. Nevertheless, the equipment is easy to switch between bicycles, if only a few tools is needed to switch between bicycles in the methodology. Moreover, data collection using instrument bicycle includes an interview survey on each participating bicyclist, and investigate weather conditions, and effort experience during the data collection on each participating bicyclist. Results indicate that negative acceleration i.e., deceleration, at intersections, curves, uphill when a conventional bicycle is used. Meanwhile, it is also negative acceleration i.e., deceleration at downhills when an electric bicycle is used. Furthermore, the use of electric bicycle leads to higher travel speed and lower power output usage on average than when a conventional bicycle is used as expected. Moreover, at downhills the speed can still increase even though the power output usage is zero, according to the analysis of free-riding behaviour. In addition, data collection using instrumented bicycle collects other measurement of the effort for the bicyclist such as the heart rate, and cadence.