Comparing Safety-Related Riding Behaviors on Bicycles and Electric Bicycles

As electric bicycles (e-bikes) have emerged as a new transportation mode, their role in transportation systems and their impact on users have become important issues. The performance of e-bikes provides some benefits to users, compared to regular bicycles, such as a reduction in user effort required for similar trips, increased range, and increased speed to name a few. The performance characteristics of e-bikes could influence the behavior of riders and could influence on user safety. This work uses global positioning system (GPS) data collected during user trips on both e-bikes and regular bicycles, which are part of an on-campus e- bike sharing system, to study user safety behavior between bicycle and e-bike modes. This report focuses on behaviors observed under four situations: 1) riding behaviors on directional roadway segments, 2) riding behaviors on shared use paths, 3) stopping behavior at stop-controlled intersections, and 4) stopping behaviors at signalized intersections. Behavior is studied in each situation and analyzed with regard to the desired, or safest, behavior. Results show some differences in behaviors between users of the two bicycle types but indicate that bicycle type has a small influence on safety behavior as compared to facility characteristics and other factors.