The perspective of cyclists on current practices with digital tools and envisioned services for urban cycling

This is a preprint version of an accepted manuscript in WorldCist'21 -9th World Conference on Information Systems and TechnologiesAs cycling becomes increasingly important in sustainable mobility policies, there is also an urge for new digital applications and services for urban cycling. This new generation of cycling applications should be able to connect cyclists with their local cycling ecosystem, promote cycling, and empower cyclists to become active agents of urban mobility. In this work, we aim to explore the new opportunity space of digital tools and applications designed specifically for urban cycling. We pursue this goal by trying to uncover current practices associated with digital tools that are already available and also by trying to uncover new information needs, even those that cyclists are not yet able to fully express. To explore these topics, we conducted 2 focus group sessions and 10 interviews with cyclists. The result is a set of design opportunities for the development of new applications, tools and methods for improving the cycling experience in the context of urban mobility. We expect this contribution might help to better define the design space of innovative digital tools for urban cyclists.This work is supported by: European Structural and Investment Funds in the FEDER component, through the Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme (COMPETE 2020) [Project nº 039334; Funding Reference: POCI-01-0247- FEDER-039334

Observed Risk and User Perception of Road Infrastructure Safety Assessment for Cycling Mobility

The opportunities for data collection in smart cities and communities provide new approaches for assessing risk of roadway components. This paper presents and compares two different methodological approaches for cycling safety assessment of objective and perceived risk. Objective risk was derived from speed and direction profiles collected with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and camera installed on an instrumented bicycle. Safety critical events between cyclists and other road users were identified and linked to five different roadway components. A panel of experts was asked to score the severity of the safety critical events using a Delphi process to reach consensus. To estimate the perceived risk, a web-based survey was provided to the city bicyclist community asking them to score the same five roadway components with a 4-point Likert scale. A comparison between perceived and objective risk classification of the roadway components showed a good agreement when only higher severity conflicts were considered. The research findings support the notion that it is possible to collect information from bicycle probe data that match and user perceptions and thus, utilizing them to take advantage of such data in advancing the goals of in smart cities and communities

IMPROVING BICYCLE INFRASTRUCTURE WITH THE USE OF BICYCLE SHARE TRAVEL DATA

Bicycling as a mode of transportation has been increasing in recent years due to its environmental and health benefits. The availability of bicycles through bicycle share programs has made bicycling a more viable option. With this increase, there is a need for complementary improvements of bicycle infrastructure. Many local and regional transportation agencies are recognizing this need and developing a master plan or safety action plan to improve the city’s bicycle and walking facilities. This study examines bicycle travel demands and travel patterns in Lexington, Kentucky as generated by SPIN bicycle share users. It is hypothesized that the SPIN users emulate bicycle users on and around the University of Kentucky campus. Therefore, analyzing their travel patterns will provide a valuable understanding of bicycle demand and infrastructure needs. To identify such demand, travel patterns and routes were compared to the existing bicycle infrastructure in order to determine improvement needs with an ulterior goal to increase bicycling as a mode of transportation. The methods of study include five levels of analysis: length and duration, temporal, climatic, point density, and modeling. Recommendations for improving routes and parking facilities have been developed based on analytical methods and results obtained. The findings support the notion that bicycle infrastructure influences the travel paths cyclists take. The research supports the idea that commuters are using SPIN bicycles to chain their trips with transit and completing the last or first section of the trip with a bicycle. It was found that bicycle travel demand fluctuates with weather patterns. Furthermore, future work could use the existing data and conduct a detailed analysis on the individual trip level to determine what percentage of a completed trip was taken on an existing bicycle facility or on a non-facility. These findings should aid transportation planning and city officials to make decisions for expanding the existing bicycle network in efforts to minimize the percentage of cyclists who take a detour and the length of detours when necessary

Projeto e implementação de controle SMC-integral em quadrirotor visando a inspeção de ciclovias

Trabalho de conclusão de curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Tecnologia, Curso de Graduação em Engenharia de Controle e Automação, 2020.O presente trabalho está centrado no contexto de cidades inteligentes, mais especificamente na componente de infraestrutura, onde se deseja aumentar a eficiência das chamadas facilidades da cidade por meio da utilização de instrumentos que permitam aumentar a automação da inspe- ção. Dessa forma, visando a inspeção automática da infraestrutura cicloviária, um quadrirrotor é especificado e montado, assim como o projeto e simulação de diferentes controladores lineares e não lineares com variantes, a fim de se obter o mais adequado à tarefa. Ao fim desse trabalho, foi possível concluir que efetivamente o SMC-integral, com aproximação contínua por tangente hiperbólica tem maior capacidade de cumprir os objetivos propostos, em detrimento da utilização de um maior esforço de controle.The present work is centered in the context of smart cities, more specifically in the infrastructure component, where it is desired to increase the efficiency of the so-called city facilities through the use of instruments that allow to increase the automation of inspection. Thus, aiming at the automatic inspection of the cycling infrastructure, a quadrotor is specified and assembled, as well as the design and simulation of different linear and non-linear controllers with variants, in order to obtain the most suitable for the task. At the end of this work, it was possible to conclude that the SMC-integral, with continuous approach by hyperbolic tangent, has a greater capacity to accomplish the task, to the detriment of the use of a greater control effort