Investigating the mobility habits of electric bike owners through GPS data

This paper investigates the mobility habits of electric bike owners as well as their preferred routes. Through a GPS tracking campaign conducted in the city of Ghent (Belgium) we analyze the mobility habits (travel distance, time spent, speed) during the week of some e-bike users. Moreover, we propose the results of our map matching, based on the Hausdorff criterion, and preliminary results on the route choice of our sample. We strongly believe that investigating the behavior of electric bikes’ owners can help us in better understanding how to incentivize the use of this mode of transport. First results show that the trips with a higher travel distance are performed during the working days. It could be easily correlated with the daily commuting trips (home-work). Moreover, the results of our map-matching highlight how 61% of the trips are performed using the shortest path

Unveiling E-bike potential for commuting trips from GPS traces

Common goals of sustainable mobility approaches are to reduce the need for travel, to facilitate modal shifts, to decrease trip distances and to improve energy efficiency in the transportation systems. Among these issues, modal shift plays an important role for the adoption of vehicles with fewer or zero emissions. Nowadays, the electric bike (e-bike) is becoming a valid alternative to cars in urban areas. However, to promote modal shift, a better understanding of the mobility behaviour of e-bike users is required. In this paper, we investigate the mobility habits of e-bikers using GPS data collected in Belgium from 2014 to 2015. By analysing more than 10,000 trips, we provide insights about e-bike trip features such as: distance, duration and speed. In addition, we offer a deep look into which routes are preferred by bike owners in terms of their physical characteristics and how weather influences e-bike usage. Results show that trips with higher travel distances are performed during working days and are correlated with higher average speeds. Usage patterns extracted from our data set also indicate that e-bikes are preferred for commuting (home-work) and business (work related) trips rather than for recreational trips

A Preliminary Analysis Over the Factors Related with the Possession of an Electric Bike

AbstractIn recent decades different studies focused on how to incentivize a shift from car to bicycle. In this context the electric bike is gaining more and more popularity. Because of its higher speed and longer reach, the e-bike could be an attractive alternative to the car. Through an online survey (together with a GPS tracking campaign and a weekly travel diary) conducted in the city of Ghent (Belgium) we define the profile of the e-bike users (age, income, ownership, etc…) and analyze their mobility habits (distance travelled, purpose of the trip, etc…). The initial results obtained from a travel diary survey show how the e-bike is highly used for commuting trips while for more occasional trips (at most once per week) the car is the preferred alternative. Moreover, the analysis of the changes in the mobility habits after the acquisition of the e-bike shows how the e-bike has mainly incorporated the trips performed by bike while also causing an increase of the frequency for some trips. Summarizing, in this paper we propose a preliminary analysis over the factors correlated with the ownership of an e-bike and an overview about how people changed their mobility habits after the acquisition of the e-bike

Calculation of welfare effects of road pricing on a large scale road network

After a brief review of the theoretical principles of road pricing this paper presents the results of a modelling exercise aimed at ascertaining the effects of road pricing on a large road network. For the study area we chose an important part of the road network of Belgium, situated in the corridor between the main cities of Brussels and Ghent. Simulations were carried out using an elastic static traffic assignment method. Special care was taken to use realistic parameters for resource costs, time costs, external environmental costs and tax rates. The reduction of traffic caused by the increased trip prices as well as the route changes induced by the tolls were taken into account. The main objective of tolling as considered in this paper is the maximisation of the social welfare gain but possible adverse effects of tolling on traffic streams are also investigated. The relative merits of cordon and corridor tolling schemes are discussed. A combination of these two tolling schemes appears to give the best results, both in terms of welfare gain and traffic streams. Santrauka Po trumpos teorinės kelių apmokestinimo apžvalgos aprašomi kelių apmokestinimo didelio mastelio kelių tinkle efekto nustatymo rezultatai. Analizei atlikti buvo pasirinkta svarbi Belgijos kelių tinklo dalis ‐ koridorius tarp pagrindiniu Briuselio ir Gento miestų. Ypatingas dėmesys kreiptas į tai, kad buvo panaudoti realūs išteklių, išorines aplinkos sąnaudų ir mokesčių parametrai. Modeliuota pagal lankstųjį statinį eismo nustatymo metodą. Nustatyta, kad eismas sumažėjo padidėjus kelionių kainoms, įvedus rinkliava už kelius. Aprašomas rinkliavos poreikis socialinei gerovei ir galimas nepalankus poveikis. Aptariami santykiniai privalumai, užkardos ir koridoriaus rinkliavų schemos. Šių dviejų rinkliavų schemų derinys duoda geriausių rezultatų tiek socialinei gerovei, tiek eismo srautams. First published online: 21 Oct 2010 Reikšminiai žodžiai: kelių mokestis, užkardos mokestis, koridoriaus mokestis, lankstus pastovus priskyrimo metodas, kelių tanki

Automatic dynamic traffic flow model of highway networks based on open data

status: accepte

Daily modal travel costs as explanatory variables for vehicle ownership decisions

status: accepte

Dynamic Traffic Assignment: Recent Advances and New Theories Towards Real Time Applications and Realistic Travel Behaviour (Editorial)

Traffic assignment is a set of criteria through which the demand for mobility is distributed over the links of a transport network. Over the last 30 years, Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) models have been developed to support time-dependent analyses in nascent fields that need to take into account the temporal distribution of demand and supply. In this book, leading international experts in the field provide a state-of-the-art overview of fundamental DTA research and practice, identifying weaknesses and major challenges for future research

Efficient Dynamic Network Loading Modeling: The fixed point link transmission model

At the core of dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) we find the Dynamic Network Loading (DNL). The goal of the DNL is to find consistency between the propagation of traffic flows on the network and the constraints imposed by roads (e.g. maximum throughput, speed limits,...) or intersections (e.g. turning restrictions, obstructions by crossing traffic,...) by inflicting delays in the network. For solving practical DTA (or DNL) problems, a numerical discretization of the variables (traffic, space, time) is required. In our context: -Traffic: Individual vehicles are aggregated into a continuous vehicle flow represented by cumulative vehicle numbers (CVN) from which the fundamental traffic characteristics (speed, flow and density) can be derived (Newell, 1993). -Space: The link transmission model (LTM, Yperman, 2007) allows one to have discrete space intervals the size of homogeneous stretches of roads (links). -Time: The time discretization is depended on the level of the problem: for standard LTM and most other DNL' s typically short (less than 1 min), for route choice models and origin destination flows a lot larger (typically around 15 min). For standard numerical schemes that solve DNL sequentially through the time domain, time steps are typically small (Courant Fraichant Lewy or CFL-condition), meaning that for each link in the network the update interval of the corresponding CVN cannot be larger than the minimum time it takes to propagate information over that specific link. This is of major importance for the efficiency of LTM (and other DNL) implementations, as computational resources are almost linearly dependent on the time update frequency. In this paper, we describe a variation on the basic LTM that avoids the CFL-conditions, which as a result allows for inherently faster numerical evaluation.status: publishe