Macro-level Safety Analysis for Electric Bicycles in Shanghai

ABSTRACT:In recent decades, electric bicycles have experienced increasing popularity in China. Yet despite their huge benefit to urban mobility, they also have become a serious traffic safety problem with a significant number of causalities. This problem is partially attributed to the lack of non- motorized vehicle guidelines in crash hot-zone and problem identification, and routine traffic enforcement is not well-oriented to these vehicles. In order to bridge this gap, this research aims at providing information on the key issues with electric bicycle safety management. Electric bicycle crash data, road network features, population and land use of 213 sub-districts in Shanghai were collected as independent variables. Based upon the collected data, macro-level safety studies were carried out. Historical crash records were divided into two categories as per their severity levels: fatal and injury (FI) crashes and property damage only (PDO) crashes. In order to accommodate the correlation between crashes of different severity levels as well as spatial correlation between the studied units, a Multivariate Poisson Log-normal (MVPLN) Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) model was developed to explore the relationship between crashes at different severity levels and their corresponding independent variables. The authors further calculated a Potential for Safety Improvements (PSI) for each sub-district and used it for hot- zone identification. Finally, an integrated screening was conducted and safety problems were identified for the major hot-zone classifications studied. The results show that the hot-zones of FI electric bicycle crashes areas are more concentrated in urban fringe compared to those of PDO crashes. The most frequently reported causes of crashes is motorized vehicles failing or refusing to yield. Based on the findings, a few corresponding countermeasures are further proposed.

Qingya Zhou, Xuesong Wang*. Macro-level Safety Analysis for Electric Bicycles in Shanghai. Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, 2018. 1.7-11.