Identifying methods to reduce conflicts between automobiles and bikes in China using microsimulation

With an ever-expanding population and rapid modernization, China is faced with transportation related problems that are both familiar and foreign to the rest of the industrialized world. There is also a large increase in rural-urban migration, resulting in high income disparities and thus diverse transportation needs. While a small but growing percentage of the urban population is adopting automobiles, there are still many people who rely on two-wheel transportation. Engineers in many of the urban cities are facing challenges resulting from an increase in the number of conflicts between various forms of transportation including bicycles, buses, cars, electric bicycles, and pedestrians. This thesis examines practical and economical measures that could be taken to reduce the number of conflict points at intersections, which are tested through simulation using VISSIM microsimulation software. To test different configurations, representative intersections in China were analyzed.The data collection for three intersections took place in July 2008 in the city of Kunming, in southern China. The unique traffic flows and geometric layout at each intersection resulted in various alternatives being applied at each intersection. Those alternatives included signalized changes such as delayed green signals and separate bicycle phasing as well as geometric changes such as the addition of turn lanes. There are four main parameters for the evaluation of the existing conditions and the alternatives, and they are speed, delay, queue lengths, and travel times. Each alternative was compared with the existing conditions to determine their effectiveness of reducing conflict while quantifying their impact on the traffic parameters.The addition of right-turn lanes, which does little to decrease conflicts relative to other alternatives, yielded the shortest queue lengths, delay and average travel times while separate bike phases, which eliminates or greatly reduces conflict the exposure of bikes, proved to increase delay for most road users. The findings in this report could provide other engineers and researchers with information that could not only lead to further research, but changes to roadway design policies as they relate to bicycle traffic in not only China but in the rest of the world.