Center for Transportation Research, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States.
Department of Geography, 304 Burchfiel Geography Building, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States.
Accid Anal Prev. 2015 Sep;82:220-6. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2015.05.016. Epub 2015 Jun 17.
As electric bicycles (e-bikes) have emerged as a new transportation mode, their role in transportation systems and their impact on users have become important issues for policy makers and engineers. Little safety-related research has been conducted in North America or Europe because of their relatively small numbers. This work describes the results of a naturalistic GPS-based safety study between regular bicycle (i.e., standard bicycle) and e-bike riders in the context of a unique bikesharing system that allows comparisons between instrumented bike technologies. We focus on rider safety behavior under four situations: (1) riding in the correct direction on directional roadway segments, (2) speed on on-road and shared use paths, (3) stopping behavior at stop-controlled intersections, and (4) stopping behavior at signalized intersections. We find that, with few exceptions, riders of e-bike behave very similarly to riders of bicycles. Violation rates were very high for both vehicles. Riders of regular bicycles and e-bikes both ride wrong-way on 45% and 44% of segments, respectively. We find that average on-road speeds of e-bike riders (13.3kph) were higher than regular bicyclists (10.4kph) but shared use path (greenway) speeds of e-bike riders (11.0kph) were lower than regular bicyclists (12.6kph); both significantly different at >95% confidence. At stop control intersections, both bicycle and e-bike riders violate the stop signs at the similar rate with bicycles violating stop signs at a slightly higher rate at low speed thresholds (∼80% violations at 6kph, 40% violations at 11kph). Bicycles and e-bikes violate traffic signals at similar rates (70% violation rate). These findings suggest that, among the same population of users, e-bike riders exhibit nearly identical safety behavior as regular bike riders and should be regulated in similar ways. Users of both technologies have very high violation rates of traffic control devices and interventions should occur to improve compliance.
随着电动自行车（e-bike）作为一种新的交通方式出现，其在交通系统中的作用及其对用户的影响已成为政策制定者和工程师关注的重要问题。由于其数量相对较少，北美和欧洲几乎没有进行任何与安全相关的研究。这项工作描述了在一个独特的共享单车系统中，基于 GPS 的自然主义安全研究的结果，该系统允许对仪器化自行车技术进行比较。我们重点研究了四种情况下骑手的安全行为：（1）在定向车道路段上按正确方向行驶，（2）在道路和共用使用路径上的速度，（3）在有停车控制的交叉口的停车行为，（4）在有信号控制的交叉口的停车行为。我们发现，除了少数例外，电动自行车骑手的行为与自行车骑手非常相似。两种车辆的违规率都非常高。普通自行车和电动自行车的骑手分别有 45%和 44%的路段逆行。我们发现电动自行车骑手的平均道路速度（13.3kph）高于普通自行车骑手（10.4kph），但电动自行车骑手在共用使用路径（绿道）上的速度（11.0kph）低于普通自行车骑手（12.6kph）；置信度超过 95%时差异均显著。在停车控制交叉口，自行车和电动自行车骑手以相似的速度违反停车标志，自行车在低速阈值（∼80%的违规行为在 6kph，40%的违规行为在 11kph）下违反停车标志的速度略高。自行车和电动自行车以相似的速度违反交通信号（违规率为 70%）。这些发现表明，在同一用户群体中，电动自行车骑手的安全行为与普通自行车骑手几乎相同，应采用类似的方式进行监管。两种技术的用户对交通控制装置的违规率都非常高，应采取干预措施以提高合规性。
