A New Solution to the Growing Problem of Bicycle Detection

The bicycle population is growing rapidly and many agencies are developing policies to support this vocal and politically connected community. With the adoption of specific mandates, many traffic agencies are experiencing the challenging requirement to provide traffic signals that are designed to take bicycles into consideration. Designing traffic signals with considerations for bicycles adds the issue of the minimum time a bicycle takes to cross the intersection, which is significantly longer than the time a motorized vehicle takes. A common estimate is, if a vehicle minimum green time is 3 seconds, the bicycle minimum time should be 10 seconds. In the case of an eight phase intersection, if it is assumed bicycles are present in each phase, this will dominate the traffic signal timing plan and significantly reduce the operational efficiency of the traffic signal. The article shows how the ability to determine if a bicycle is present or not will allow an agency to recapture these precious seconds and re-allocate them to efficiently move motorized vehicles through the intersection. Bicycles present their own unique set of challenges to vehicle detection. Bicycles are small in size/profile and typically contain few ferromagnetic components, which makes detection by traditional means difficult. With this in mind, MicroRadar™ was developed. MicroRadar™ is a small battery powered detector that detects bicycles and differentiates between a bicycle and a motorized vehicle. MicroRadar™ expands the detection portfolio to include the reliable and accurate detection of bicycles for traffic signal control applications.