Developing the Model and Environment for Evaluating Ride Quality of Cyclists
Cycling is a viable transportation option for almost everyone and enhances health, equity, and quality of life. Cycling contributes to the society by reducing fuel consumption, traffic congestion, and air and noise pollution. In recent days, cycling has been promoted as more emphasis is given to non-motorized mobility. To attract people towards cycling, safe and comfortable bikeways are needed. The impact of bikeway design parameters on bicycle stability (safety) and rider comfort can be evaluated using simulation models. Therefore, a dynamic simulation model is developed in ADAMS using the Whipple benchmark bicycle model parameters. Vertical equilibrium, theoretical centripetal acceleration, and experimental data collected using an instrumented probe bicycle (IPB) are used to validate the model. The bicycle model is simulated over a predefined horizontally curved bikeway at different velocities to calculate slip angle, centripetal acceleration and jerk. The results show that the slip angle, centripetal acceleration and jerk increase with the increase of bicycle velocity and degree of curvature. Depending on the available transition curves, a significant jerk could be generated at the entrance and exit of a curve. As the outcome of this research, a graphical tool is presented that can be used to determine the upper limit of the velocity for a given horizontal curve to limit the jerk. Alternatively, this tool can be used to determine the jerk in order to design transition curves for a given horizontal curve and a selected velocity
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Completed
- Funding: $122405
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Contract Numbers:
DTRT13-G-UTC60 TRC 17-02
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Sponsor Organizations:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
University Transportation Centers Program
Department of Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20590 -
Managing Organizations:
Transportation Research Center for Livable Communities
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI United States 49009-5316 -
Project Managers:
Dunn, Denise
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Performing Organizations:
1903 W. Michigan Avenue
Kalamazoo, MI United States 49008-5241 -
Principal Investigators:
Attanayake, Upul
Keil, Mitch
- Start Date: 20170815
- Expected Completion Date: 20180831
- Actual Completion Date: 20180831
- USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers
- Subprogram: Research
- Source Data: https://wmich.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/u883/2019/17-02.pdf
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Bicycling; Cyclists; Evaluation; Ride quality; Simulation
- Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01646013
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: Transportation Research Center for Livable Communities
- Contract Numbers: DTRT13-G-UTC60 TRC 17-02
- Files: UTC, RIP
- Created Date: Sep 15 2017 10:26AM