Building a safer Netherlands together with Rijkswaterstaat
More insight into bicycle safety
Improving road safety begins with insight into risks. That is why the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management is working on a new, risk-driven approach to reduce the number of traffic fatalities and serious injuries. One of the questions involved is: are bicycle paths wide enough for the number of cyclists using them?
Together with Rijkswaterstaat, CQM developed an algorithm that provides insight into the intensity of bicycle traffic. This gives municipalities and provinces better insight into where improvements are needed to further enhance road safety.
10 million +
routes calculated
More insight
in bicycle traffic
Safer
substantiated policy
Paul Schepers of Rijkswaterstaat is Program Manager for the Implementation of the Traffic Safety Data Taskforce. The taskforce is a partnership of various government bodies (municipalities and provinces in the Netherlands) that express needs regarding traffic safety data. Paul is responsible for the implementation, including collecting and making available data on bicycle paths.
Improving road safety: fewer accidents
“Improving cycling safety in the Netherlands is necessary because many traffic accidents occur among Dutch cyclists. Unfortunately, the number of traffic fatalities among cyclists has not decreased for several years, and the number of seriously injured in traffic accidents is rising. Naturally, for the sake of health, we want more people to take the bike instead of the car, and we want people to be able to do so safely. The task of increasing traffic safety among cyclists stems from the new Strategic Plan for Road Safety 2030. That plan proposes a risk-driven approach. The idea is that road safety policy is no longer based solely on accident and casualty figures, but that you proactively manage potential risks regarding safety in traffic. You do this by mapping risk indicators: indicators to identify, measure, and monitor the safety level of specific components of the traffic system. A sufficiently safe cycle path is one of these components. The next step is to see how road safety develops along that path. Data is needed for this. And therefore, CQM is also required,” explains Paul.
The width of the cycle paths
He continues: “Research shows that the quality of cycle paths is important for improving traffic safety among this target group. Components of the ‘safe cycle paths’ risk indicator include, for example: are there obstacles on the paths, are they wide enough, is the road layout recognizable with markings, and so on. CQM has contributed data for the component ‘are the cycle paths wide enough’. You only know if a path is wide enough if you know how many cyclists ride on it. In other words: we need to look at the intensity of bicycle traffic.”
Analyzing millions of bicycle routes
“We used, among other things, available data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) from the ‘Onderweg in Nederland’ (ODIN) survey. However, this sample naturally never represents the entire Dutch cycling population. CQM broadened this sample using probability calculations. This also provided insight into which route options were most likely used by bicycle as well, even though this was not reported. For example: what is the probability that a person who normally takes the car for a short trip also occasionally takes the bike, and vice versa? This means we have collected a lot of useful data for road authorities. That is a great advantage of working with CQM: they easily translate complex data (such as mathematical data) into usable information,” says Paul. Marnix adds: “Because we can calculate a large number of routes very quickly with CQMaps, we were able to calculate the shortest route here for more than 10 million origin destinations and translate that into bicycle path usage. We also take traffic rules and traffic jams into account with this algorithm. Every issue therefore becomes scalable and realistic.”
Making complex data usable
That is very nice about working with CQM: they easily translate something complex, such as mathematical data, into usable information.
Paul SchepersProgram Manager Implementation Taskforce Traffic Safety Data, Rijkswaterstaat
Insight with data
Paul: “With the developed algorithm, we can provide the municipalities and provinces of the Netherlands with data that provides insight into the volume of bicycle traffic. Bureau SWECO has mapped out other data, including the pavement width of cycle paths. Combined with this data, it can be determined whether they are wide enough in relation to the cycling intensity. We compare the results with the nationally determined requirements for cycle paths. This allows municipalities and provinces to see at a glance what is going well in terms of bicycle traffic safety and where there is room for improvement.”
Data as the basis for safer cycle paths
“In the future, we want to add more and more risk indicators to this, so that safety among cyclists continuously improves and is monitored. Think of mapping cycle path obstacles (such as bollards). The intensity estimation can also be further improved. The data already provide a good indication within built-up areas, but outside built-up areas the estimates are still unreliable, for example because recreational cycling traffic has not yet been taken into account. It might be possible to develop a model estimate for this. And we can make more use of data from the National Road Traffic Data Portal, which contains a lot of data from measuring loops installed in cycle paths. You will surely recognize these in Eindhoven near CQM: when you enter the tunnel, you are counted as a cyclist in the daily total. We want to compare all this available data with our sample to validate it. The Taskforce will continue until at least 2024. The first step towards a safer cycling Netherlands has been taken, and hopefully many more great steps – and safe cycling kilometers – will follow,” Paul concludes.
Substantiate complex mobility issues with data as well?
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Paul Schepers Program Manager Implementation Taskforce Traffic Safety Data, Rijkswaterstaat
