Cycling[1].
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Assessment of the
impact of cyclists on
heterogeneous traffic
David Carrignon, Colin Buchanan
Heterogeneous traffic conditions are normally because of the rise in the number of two-wheelers.
associated with some developing countries but they This paper describes a first attempt to model two-
are becoming more common in Central London wheelers in London using VISSIM. While more
MODELLING TWO-WHEELERS IN VISSIM
Central London traffic conditions are changing! In recent
years, pedal cycles and powered two-wheelers have been
encouraged as a convenient alternative to overcrowded
public transport and to traffic congestion, and it has
worked. Today, engineers doing traffic models in the
square mile and the surrounding areas are faced with a new
challenge because the success of this alternative form of
transport has generated heterogeneous traffic conditions.
Traditional traffic engineering theory looking into the
impact of cyclists and motorcyclists usually assumes a
low or a very low proportion of two-wheelers and homo-
geneous traffic conditions. In the United Kingdom, the
Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) published in 1986 a
study titled ‘the prediction of saturation flows for road
junctions controlled by traffic signals’. This study, more
commonly known as RR67, sets the standard in terms of
saturation flow calculation in the UK. PCU values were
calculated by the method of headway ratios on a lane-
specific basis. It is therefore estimated by dividing the av-
erage headway associated with a given vehicle type by
that for light vehicles.
In this key document, motorcycles were assumed to re-
spect lane discipline and were given a PCU value of 0.4,
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SIMULATING TWO-WHEELERS IN CENTRAL LONDON
calibration is needed, it shows that cyclists and
powered two-wheelers could become two new
stakeholders in the traffic modelling process.
while pedal cycles would be expected to use lateral gaps
in traffic and were given a PCU value of 0.2. In a context
where powered two-wheelers would not respect lane dis-
cipline, their PCU value should therefore be expected to
be closer to 0.2.
HETEROGENEOUS TRAFFIC
Heterogeneous traffic conditions combine significant ve-
hicle performance discrepancies and a lack of lane disci-
pline. In most places in London, the volume of cyclists
and motorcyclists is not sufficient to impact traffic condi-
tions and motorists tend to respect lane discipline quite
well. In some places of Central London however, this is
no longer the case. It is not that cars, buses and lorries
have changed their driving habits, but the rise in two-
wheelers is changing traffic conditions. Author’s details:
Heterogeneous traffic conditions are usually perceived David Carrignon is
as frustrating for motorists, unpleasant for vulnerable Principal traffic
users and generally unsafe. The discrepancy in vehicle engineer at Colin
performance leads drivers to be frustrated by vehicles Buchanan and can be
with lower performance and the usage of lateral gaps sig- contacted by email at
nificantly increases the amount of information a driver david.carrignon@
has to deal with. Motorcycles are usually at the high end cbuchanan.co.uk
of vehicle performance whilst pedal cycles are at the low
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SIMULATING TWO-WHEELERS IN CENTRAL LONDON
end. Both vehicle types have been monitored and ob-
served not to be respecting lane discipline.
In many countries with large volumes of cyclists, the
solution of mandatory cycle lanes on the carriageway was
adopted. If you compare two segregated lanes, one for cy-
clists only and one for motorised vehicles only these two
roads would have a perceived safer environment and a
higher capacity than the same two lanes with heteroge-
neous traffic conditions. This example however assumes
for fast moving motorised traffic, comparatively slow
moving cyclists, and ignores junction capacity issues. In
Central London, motorised vehicles are relatively slow,
cyclists are surprisingly fast and space for such segregated
infrastructure is scarce.
PARLIAMENT SQUARE
Colin Buchanan was commissioned by Transport for Lon-
don (TfL) to undertake traffic models as part of a regenera-
tion project of Parliament Square in Central London. A set
of traffic models were developed including one using VIS-
SIM micro-simulation software. Following this commis-
sion, the London Cycling Centre of Excellence requested
further research using this model to assess the impact of cy-
clists on the general traffic in Central London.
In most cases, the Directorate of Transport Operations
(DTO), part of TfL, advises excluding two-wheelers from
micro-simulation models. For this project however, pedal
cycles and motorcycles had to be represented while re-
maining fully compliant with DTO guidelines.
The DTO modelling guidelines version 2 includes re-
quirements for micro-simulation models. These require-
ments are mainly on junction turning counts, car jour-
ney times and saturation flow. In this case turning counts
and car journey time did not require a change in model-
ling habits, but the saturation flow did.
Unaware of where the project would lead, the incep-
tion meeting threw up an interesting debate on the issue
of two-wheelers. One side was adamant they would have
no impact, as it is what the theory tells us. The other side
was unconvinced. This initial discussion led to a decision
which proved invaluable. Site visits recorded the satura-
tion flow omitting two-wheelers, as if they would be in-
visible. Classified counts were available, Vehicular Satura-
tion Flow (VSF), so two-wheelers could be assimilated
into an environmental constraint! As shown later, this
decision was the key to the success in modelling two-
wheelers.
Figure 1: VEHICULAR SATURATION FLOW (VSF)
Overtaking issue Survey method
The Vehicular Saturation Flow site measurement is a stan-
Two-Wheeler
Other large vehicle
Lane 3 2 1 TfL DTO very usefully keeps an up-to-date VISSIM tem-
324 TEC JULY 2009
dard saturation flow measurement at a signalised stopline
at a saturated approach. As mentioned above, the main
difference is the omission of two-wheelers. This of course
reduces the saturation flow recorded when there is large
concentration of two-wheelers.
VISSIM measurement options
Once the VSF values were recorded, a method had to be
developed to replicate this measurement in VISSIM.
Headway values between vehicles at a stopline can be ob-
tained from the software using a special evaluation file.
This file is usually the basis of the saturation flow calibra-
tion in VISSIM in homogeneous traffic conditions. Em-
pirical results shows that a headway of 2.5 seconds is a
good indicator for the end of saturation and that a mea-
surement should only be recorded from the third vehicle
passing the stopline.
Because two-wheelers are using lateral gaps, the head-
way measurement output file became unusable as we
could not distinguish cyclists and motorcyclists from
other vehicles. The development of an Excel VBA pro-
gramme enabled us to extract the following information:
• The headway of each vehicle crossing a stopline dur-
ing the green time
• The PCU value of the vehicle attached to a particular
headway
With the PCU value and the headway, it becomes pos-
sible to derive the VSF. The difficulty consists in identify-
ing the end of saturation, as 2.5 seconds was not suitable
anymore as it would lead to too few records. Nine cases
have therefore been detailed to identify the end of satura-
tion.
• Case 1 – A Car or an LGV preceded by a Car or an LGV
The headway has to be less than 2.5s
• Case 2 – A Car or an LGV preceded by an HGV or a Bus
The headway has to be less than 5s
• Case 3 – A Car or an LGV preceded by a Bicycle or a
Motorbike
The headway has to be less than 2s
• Case 4 – An HGV or a Bus preceded by a Car or an LGV
The headway has to be less than 5s
• Case 5 – An HGV or a Bus preceded by a HGV or a Bus
The headway has to be less than 5s
• Case 6 – An HGV or a Bus preceded by a Bicycle or a
Motorbike
The headway has to be less than 2s
• Case 7 – A Bicycle or a Motorbike car preceded by a Car
or an LGV
The headway has to be less than 2.5s
• Case 8 – A Bicycle or a Motorbike car preceded by a
HGV or a Bus
The headway has to be less than 5s
• Case 9 – A Bicycle or a Motorbike car preceded by a Bi-
cycle or a Motorbike
The headway has to be less than 1s
In the case of more than five consecutive two-wheelers,
the recording of data will suspend until the beginning of
the following green. The ending of the recording process
ensures that the recording remains in relatively standard
conditions.
This VSF measurement tool enabled us to calibrate the
driving behaviour.
DRIVING BEHAVIOUR
plate which includes the most suitable parameters for
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SIMULATING TWO-WHEELERS IN CENTRAL LONDON

London. This template is the usual starting point and this Position on street (cyclists
model was no exception. tend to go closer to the
In order to allow two-wheelers to overtake and be over- kerb to overtake other
vehicles on the left).
taken within the same lane, two new link types were cre-
ated; one for single lane roads and one for multiple lane
roads. These link types helped reproduce the usage of lat-
eral gaps and produced acceptable driving behaviour at
this stage.
The difficulty with this setup is that the lane width is
Figure 2:
becoming an important factor which meant that the Cycle position in relation
geometry of the links in VISSIM are having an influence to the kerb
on driving behaviour. This was new, and had to be cali-
brated.
Through trial and error, the lateral distance parameter
was eventually calibrated which determines if a two- Position in VISSIM (the
wheeler decides to use a gap or not. Although very good Kerb edge of the vehicle plus
the appropriate lateral
results were being achieved, this new method affected the
distance)
stability of the results.

STABILITY OF THE RESULTS

The difficulty with the stability of the saturation flow
measurement with the proposed method is that it de-
pends on the traffic composition. The PCU factor is here
to compensate the difference, but it is best to rely on a
large sample.
To calculate the VSF with an acceptable level of accu-
racy, the sample recorded to undertake the calculation
should reflect the traffic composition as much as possible.
Overall, it was found that at least 30 headways have to be
recorded in saturated conditions for the measurement to
become reliable.
CURRENT LIMITATIONS OF THE DRIVING
BEHAVIOUR
Although the outputs of the model we developed were
good, the visual aspect and driving behaviour flexibility
of two-wheelers still needs to be improved.
When a vehicle wants to do a ‘necessary lane change ‘,
a lane change due to a change in direction, this vehicle
will have a limited number of lanes to choose from. Once
in the appropriate lane, it remains in it. The type of issue
faced then corresponds to a situation where left turning
vehicles cannot use the space available on the inside lane
to overtake the two-wheeler. In reality, it is very likely
that the motorised vehicle would overtake.
Another limitation is the lateral distance of two-wheel-
ers against the kerb. The same parameter is used to iden-
tify gaps between vehicles and between a vehicle and a
kerb.
Many two-wheelers, cyclists overtaking a queue of traf-
fic at a stopline in particular, would have their wheels
very close to the kerb.
VISSIM is also currently unable to let a proportion of
vehicles jump a light. This can be an issue in an environ-
ment where a significant proportion of the cyclists do not
respect traffic lights. A special vehicle type could be setup
for this purpose but the light jumping behaviour is ex-
pected to be site specific and this solution is therefore not
appropriate.
The last major limitation of the software we encoun-
tered is linked to the calculation power available. For the
moment, a vehicle can only look up to ten vehicles ahead
to anticipate conflicts. With large number of two-wheel-
ers on the network, it happens that some vehicles collide
with others because they cannot anticipate enough.
These limitations appeared as the model was developed
and they are very likely to be overcome in the future.
STRATIFIED SATURATION HYPOTHESIS
One of the objectives of the further study commissioned
by the London Cycling Centre of Excellence was to assess
the impact of lane width on the PCU value of cyclists
using VISSIM. While doing the testing, it was discovered
that there were issues with the way saturation was in-
cluded. So far, the VSF saturation flow was calculated
without looking at two-wheelers. When attempting to
calculate the PCU value of cyclists, the stratified satura-
tion hypothesis had to be formulated. This hypothesis
states that vehicles respecting lane discipline do not nec-
essarily achieve the same level of saturation as vehicles
not respecting lane discipline.
For example, in traffic flow mainly composed of cars
with a wide lane and a couple of two-wheelers, cars might
be at saturation, but two-wheelers might not be. They are
filling the gaps in the traffic and they still have some
space for more cyclists.
The calculation showed that the two-wheelers’ traffic
reaches saturation at 10% of traffic proportion. This hy-
pothesis enabled the reproduction of the statement pre-
sent in the existing literature that in heterogeneous traffic
conditions, the PCU value of a vehicle type is variable.
The table below is only a preliminary result from the
model and should be re-assessed against measured values
on street, but it shows the average cyclist PCU value per
lane width.
CONCLUSION
This work was a very successful first attempt to model
two-wheelers in Central London. It shows that more cali-
bration is needed, but it also shows that cyclists and pow-
ered two-wheelers could become two new stakeholders
being included in the traffic modelling process.
Lane Width PCU
2.5 m 0.30
3.0 m 0.28
3.5 m 0.27
4.0 m 0.20 Table 3:
Cyclists average PCU
4.5 m 0.19 analysis

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