IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 5, NO.
4, DECEMBER 2004
A Study on Cyclist Behavior
at Signalized Intersections
Huang Ling and Jianping Wu
Abstract—A study on the cyclist behavior at a signal-controlled in-
tersection was conducted to determine the behavioral characteristics
representative. The study focused on the cyclists’ behavior at signalized
intersections, including the crossing speeds, crossing gap/lag acceptance
behavior, and group-riding behavior. Traffic data were collected by using
video cameras from a wide and complex signalized intersection. The
statistical analysis of data was conducted to determine the characteristics
of bicycle traffic crossing speeds, gap/lag acceptance, and group riding.
Interesting group behavior of cyclists at a signal-controlled intersection
was discovered and analyzed. The results are useful for understanding
the performance of mixed traffic at signalized intersections and building
microscopic simulation models.
I. INTRODUCTION
In a Chinese city, the bicycle is an important traffic mode and takes
up quite a part of the urban traffic volume. This paper is focused on the
study of cyclist behavior at signalized intersections, including cyclist’s
gap/lag acceptance behavior when crossing automobile traffic streams,
crossing speed characteristics, and group-riding behavior in Beijing,
China. This work is part of a Project (Microscopic Simulation on Mixed
Traffic at Signalized Intersection), which is sponsored by the Ministry
of Science and Technology, People’s Republic of China. The results
of this study have been used to build up the basic theoretical cyclist’s
behavioral models for a microscopic simulation program. The results
may also be helpful for the planning, management, and facility design
of bicycle traffic.
In this paper, a gap is the time between two successive vehicles, begin-
ning with the front of the leading vehicle and ending with the front of the
following vehicle. A lag is the time from the moment the crossing vehicle
reaches the point of conflict until the closing lag vehicle arrives. The pre-
vailing notion of the critical gap is that it is the minimum gap duration,
which will be accepted by an individual vehicle/operator unit in a spe-
cific situation [1]. This critical gap varies across the population and some
percentile can be used for analysis and design. A measure of the center of
this distribution is often chosen as the design critical gap [2].
Opiela et al. [3] recorded a total of 260 bicycle crossings of two lanes of
one-way motor-vehicle traffic (7.3 m wide) and determined the gap-ac-
ceptance characteristics of the cyclists. They determined that the dis-
tribution of accepted gaps corresponded to a log normal function. The
average accepted gap was 3.9 s and the minimum was noted to be 1.1 s.
Taylor and Mahmassani [2] estimated discrete choice (probit)
models of both motorist and cyclist gap acceptance behavior when
crossing and merging with bicycle–automobile mixed traffic at three
low-speed stop-controlled intersections near a university campus.
Bicycle travel speeds had been studied by several researchers, in-
cluding Opiela et al. [3], Taylor [4], Pein [5], and Forester [6], and
in various environments. A common conclusion is that bicycle travel
speeds are basically normally distributed.
Manuscript received November 30, 2003; revised July 31, 2004. This paper
is based on the Beijing ITS Planning and Deployment Project, which was sup-
ported by the Beijing Technology Committee. The Associate Editor for this
paper was S. Tang.
H. Ling is with the Transportation School, Beijing Jiaotong University, Bei-
jing 100044, China (e-mail: huangling.ucic@163.com).
J. Wu is with the Transportation Research Group, University of Southampton,
Southampton SO17 1BJ, U.K. (e-mail: j.wu@soton.ac.uk).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TITS.2004.837812
1524-9050/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
293
II. DATA COLLECTION AND REDUCTION
The chosen signalized intersection for data collection is located
near a shopping mall, which joins a corridor (west–east) and an avenue
(north–south). The volumes of bicycle, automobile, and pedestrian
traffic at this intersection in peak hours are all quite large. They are
5000 veh/h, 4100 bic/h, and 2500 people/h, respectively (excluding
those crossing by the pedestrian overpass). This is a wide complex
intersection and is not only equipped with traffic lights for automobile
and pedestrian traffic, but also with special lights for bicycle traffic.
These traffic lights are all on a fixed cycle. There also is a pedestrian
overpass, crossings, and special waiting zones for left-turning auto-
mobiles in the intersection.
The traffic light for the automobile is three staged; there is a special
green phase for left-turning traffic in the east–west direction. The traffic
light for the bicycle has two stages. Therefore, some conflicts exist
between the bicycle and motor traffic (see Fig. 1).
Two synchronized video cameras were set on the L-shaped pedes-
trian overpass to obtain visual data (see Fig. 2). Then, by certain media
software, the data on tape was digitalized into Microsoft video files.
Premiere software from the Adobe Company was then used in the
data-reduction process, for it can easily break down the video files as
fine as 25 frames/s. Using the above method, the error of time measure
is estimated less than 0.04 s.
Within the data-reduction process, the speeds of traffic entities were
determined by noting the time required to traverse a known distance
(usually about 15–20 m), which is defined by a set of fixed objects
(i.e., the width of roadways or the distance between stop lines). By this
method, the error of the distance measure is estimated to be less than
0.5 m. The time required to traverse the section was obtained by noting
the number of frames during the traverse. The time can be calculated by
multiplying the number of frames by 0.04 s. The speed was computed
by dividing the reference distance by the elapse time for each entity. In
this method, the error of speed data is estimated less than 0.15 km/h.
The duration of a gap is measured from the number of pictures be-
tween the beginning and end of the gap. The gap begins when the bi-
cycle front wheel reaches the conflict point; at this moment, the opening
gap vehicle arrived at point A and the gap ends when the closing gap
vehicle reaches point A (see Fig. 3). Likewise, we can measure an ac-
cepted lag in this way; the only difference is that point A locates at the
conflict point in this case.
III. DATA ANALYSIS
A. Crossing Speeds
Signalized intersection crossing speeds for bicycle traffic were de-
termined from the data collected for 561 bicycle entities.
The speed data was classified by through and left-turning maneu-
vers in each data class. The highest five and lowest five observations
were filtered out; thus, we got 531 valid observations. The difference
of crossing speeds between bicycle and tricycle was also analyzed (see
Table I). It is found that the speeds of through and left-turning bicycles
are all higher than those of the tricycle.
The effect of gender in through and left-turning bicycle speeds was
also analyzed. (Due to the small sample size, the gender effect in tri-
cycle speeds was not analyzed.) The average through speeds for male
and female bicyclists are 11.26 and 11.58 km/h, respectively, but the
difference between them was tested to be not significant at a 90% level.
The average left-turning speeds of male and female bicyclists are 12.91
and 13.43 km/h, respectively, and the difference found is not significant
at a 90% level, either.
294 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 5, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2004

Fig. 1. Three situations of conflicts between bicycle and motor traffic at the signalized intersection: (a) right-turning motor traffic versus bicycle; b) through motor
traffic versus left-turning bicycle; and c) left-turning motor traffic versus through bicycle.

Fig. 2. Survey site draw.

The speed distributions of the through bicycle, left-turning bicycle
speeds, and through tricycle speeds were analyzed, respectively, and
the normal distribution was proven to provide the closest approxima-
tion to all classes of the collected data by using the chi-square test. (Due
to the small sample size, the speed distribution of left-turning tricycle
was not analyzed.)
This finding is similar to some former research results on bicycle
speeds carried out by Opiela et al. [3], Taylor [4], Pein [5], and Forester
[6]. However, they all studied the speeds on links, not on the crossing
speeds at (signalized) intersections. Fig. 4 gives an example of the
through bicycle-speed distribution.
B. Gap/Lag Analysis
1) Distribution: The valid sample contains 104 gap decision
observations and 217 lag observations for bicycles (after filtering
out the longest five and shortest five observations). It was found
that the average accepted gap length is 4.52 s and the minimum
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 5, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2004 295

Fig. 3. Measure of cyclist accepted gap.

TABLE I
COMPARISON OF CROSSING SPEEDS OF BICYCLE AND TRICYCLE

Fig. 4. Frequency distribution of observed through bicycle speeds.

accepted gap length was noted to be 1.56 s. The average accepted
lag was 2.93 s in length and the minimum lag was noted to be
as short as 0.52 s.
The distribution of the accepted gaps and lags of the bicyclist were
analyzed and the natural log normal distribution was found to provide a
close approximation to the data collected. The chi-square test was used
and the 2 value of gaps and lags were 11.78 and 10.58, respectively,
much smaller than their critical value 22.36. The frequency distribution
of the accepted gaps is shown in Fig. 5.
The design critical gap and lag as mentioned above—the center of
the distribution—are 4.19 and 2.47 s, respectively, and the standard
deviation  1.81 and 1.06 s.
296 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 5, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2004

The gap/lag acceptance decision rule is: if the actual gap/lag duration
Lgvm is less than the critical gap/lag, then the gap/lag is rejected or else
it is accepted. It can be modeled as

Ygvm = ( + gvm ) 0 Lgvm : (2)

If Ygvm  0, the gap is accepted; otherwise, it is rejected.

As determined above, the gvm are natural log normal distributed
across the cyclists and situations, a choice probability function can be
modeled as

Pr(accepting) = Pr(Ygvm  0)
= Pr( + gvm 0 Lgvm  0)
= Pr(gvm  Lgvm 0 )
Fig. 5. Frequency distribution of accepted gaps.
= 8 ln(Lgvm ) 0 ln()
ln()
The same type of distribution of accepted gaps were also found by ln L

Opiela et al. [3]. With another definition, they found that the critical =8 ln() (3)
gap was 3.2 s.
where 8() is the standard cumulative normal distribution and 2 is the
2) Model: Referring to Taylor and Mahmassani’s methods [2], dis-
crete choice models of cyclist gap and lag acceptance behavior when
total variance.
crossing a motor-traffic stream at signalized intersection were made.
Using the impact factor groups defined above, any systematic ef-
First, the factors that might impact gap/lag acceptance behavior were fects can be tested by including attributes in the specification and by
divided into four groups. replacing  in the choice probability expression (3) by the above spec-
1) Inherent gap characteristics group. This group includes the ification. The following choice gap acceptance probability function is
types of gap opening and closing vehicle (in the lag model, only obtained as shown in the equation at the bottom of the previous page,
the closing vehicle were considered). Herein, they were divided where
into three major types: car, minibus and bus. Other types of ve-
hicle would be included into these three types according to their
size.
2) Acting bicycle/tricycle maneuver group. This group includes
the through and left-turning maneuver and whether the cyclist
0 mean critical gap when all other attributes are zero;
Xgap vector of attributes characterizing the gap;
Xman vector of attributes characterizing the acting vehicle ma-
neuver;
Xvo vector of attributes characterizing the individual cyclist;
stops when making a gap/lag decision. Xgroup vector of attributes characterizing the riding state and gap ,
3) Individual cyclist characteristics group. This group contains all
the factors associated with a cyclist, such as gender, vehicle
type (bicycle or tricycle), etc.
4) Riding state group. This group contains the state of the cyclist
when making a gap/lag decision (riding individually or riding
in a group).
Following is a presentation of the theory and specifications of dis-
crete choice models of gap- and lag-acceptance behavior, assuming
that all the decisions are made independently, even by the same cyclist,
under the same situation. Models estimated under this assumption are
called independent decision models.
Consider the critical gap/lag duration Tgvm for a individual bicycle
(or tricycle) facing a gap/lag acceptance situation, where the situation is
defined by the acting vehicle maneuver, whether he is riding in a group
of bicycles, and any factors associated with the gap. Tgvm varies over
the cyclists and situations and can be modeled as
Tgvm =  + gvm (1)
where  is the mean critical gap/lag over all cyclists and situations and
gvm is a stochastic disturbance item.
man , vo , and group are vectors of parameters to be esti-
mated.
Then, gap/lag acceptance situations were separated to estimate the
linear regression model for mean critical gap and lag, respectively.
After the regression process, a t-test was applied to find out whether
each of the factors determined above gives a significant effect to the
man critical gap (or lag). In the mean critical gap regression model, the
significant factors include gap opening and closing vehicle types and
a bicycle maneuver; the insignificant factors include tricycle in Xvo ,
minibus in the gap-closing vehicle types, and riding in a group.
It was found that the effects of factor Xgroup and tricycle in Xvo
vector are very stochastic. An explanation is that when the bicycle
group crossing a left-turning motor vehicle, it probably made the ve-
hicle slow or even stop, so for bicycles/tricycles not close to the vehicle
or in the front of the group, the gap/lag would be longer than riding in-
dividually in the same situation, while for bicycles/tricycles near the
vehicle or in the rear part of the group, the gap/lag would be shorter.
So the factor of riding in a group does not simply lengthen or shorten
the critical gap/lag; it gives stochastic effects.
The effects of gender and minibus in the gap-closing vehicle are
found very small, 0.006 75 and 0.000 45 s, respectively. Therefore,
these factors were removed from the model. The independent decision
model of bicyclist gap and lag behavior, specified in (4), are presented

ln ( + X +
L
X + X + X
Pr(accepting) = 8 ln()
)
(4)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 5, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2004 297

TABLE II
INDEPENDENT DECISION MODEL FOR BICYCLIST’S GAP-ACCEPTANCE BEHAVIOR

The standard deviation for natural log normal distribution () is 1.81 sec.

TABLE III
INDEPENDENT DECISION MODEL FOR BICYCLIST’S LAG-ACCEPTANCE BEHAVIOR

The standard deviation for natural log normal distribution ( ) is 1.06 s.

in Tables II and III, respectively. All variables are Boolean categorical

variables (1=true and 0=false). Each coefficient has the unit of
seconds and the interpretation is that a positive coefficient increases
(and a negative one decreases) the mean critical gap.
The following are the significant factor effect analysis.

• Effect of the Gap-Opening Vehicle Type

The effect of a large gap-opening vehicle on the mean critical
gap is the most significant (+2.09 s in value). The effect of a mid-
sized gap-opening vehicle (a minibus or light vehicle) is much
less significant, only +0.3 s. This may be due to its approximation
in size with a car.
• Effect of the Gap-Closing Vehicle Type
The effect of a large gap-closing vehicle on the mean critical
gap and lag are both quite large (+0.68 s in the gap and +1.89 in
the lag).
On the other hand, the other gap-closing vehicle type, minibus Fig. 6. Comparisons of the effects of significant factors on mean critical gap
and lag.
or light vehicle, has an insignificant effect on the gap, making
almost no difference (actually 0 in the gap model and 00.24 in
the lag model). In both gap and lag models, the effect of gender is very small.
• Effect of a Cyclist’s Maneuver It seems that, in gap and lag acceptance behavior, at a signalized
Left-turning cyclists seem to need a longer gap and lag. In both intersection, there is no gender difference. The differences in ve-
gap and lag model, the left-turning maneuver effect is quite large, hicle type of gap opening and closing for the minibus and light
+0.72 and +0.83 s, respectively. vehicle are not significant either.
The effect of stopping before crossing on the gap is the largest Fig. 6 shows the comparisons of the effects of significant factors on
except for the large gap-opening vehicle factor (+0.98 s). mean critical gap and lag.
However, in the lag model, the effect of stopping before
crossing is not so significant and, furthermore, in an opposite C. Group-Riding Behavior Analysis
direction (00.19). This means that a stationary cyclist needs a Unlike the motor vehicles, when the signal turns green, the bicycles
shorter lag than a rolling cyclist. at the stop line start moving in a group, not in platoons. Group riding is a
• Insignificant Variables unique characteristic of bicycle traffic (when the bicycle traffic volume
298 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 5, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2004
Fig. 7. Microscopic simulation on mixed traffic at the signalized intersection.
TABLE IV
COMPARISONS OF BICYCLE GROUP DENSITIES OF
NORMAL AND SLOWING SPEEDS
reaches a certain standard). Ninety-five bicycle groups were analyzed
at the signalized intersection, all of which were made up of through bi-
cycles, including 49 riding in a group at a normal speed and 46 groups
with conflicting motor traffic ahead and then had a slowing speed. As
we expected, the data indicates that the slowing bicycle groups are gen-
erally wider and shorter than the normal speed groups and have greater
traffic density (see Table IV).
An interesting effect of pedestrian crossings on bicyclist behavior
was discovered: when the east–west through traffic light for motor
traffic turns red and the left-turning traffic light turns green, the
north–south pedestrian and bicycle groups waiting at the west stop
line would start moving, regardless of the red pedestrian and bicycle
traffic light before them. While the bicycles waiting at the east stop
line would obey the traffic light, the only difference between the two
stop lines is that there is no pedestrian beside at the east stop line, as
there is an overpass overhead.
This phenomenon indicates that the existence of pedestrian crossing
and pedestrians seem to have a negative influence on the cyclist be-
havior, which make them feel safer and thus obey the traffic light less.
IV. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This paper is focused on the cyclist behavior at signalized intersec-
tions. Following are the main conclusions.
• The difference of the average crossing speeds between the bicycle
and tricycle is significant; the through and left-turning crossing
speeds of the bicycle are 11.44 and 13.21 km/h and those speeds
of the tricycle are 8.72 and 11.34 km/h.
• The average through speeds of the male and female bicyclists are
11.26 and 11.58 km/h, respectively. The difference between them
is not significant.
• The average left-turning speeds of the male and female bicyclists
are 12.91 and 13.43 km/h, respectively. The difference between
them is not significant.
• For through bicycles, left-turning bicycles, and through tricycles,
the speed distribution all corresponds to a normal distribution.
• The average accepted gap length for bicycles is 4.52 s and the
minimum accepted gap length was noted to be 1.56 s.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, VOL. 5, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2004
• The average accepted lag was 2.93 s in length and the minimum
lag was 0.52 s.
• The natural log normal distribution was found to provide a close
approximation to the distributions of the accepted gaps and lags
of the bicyclist. The design critical gap and lag are 4.19 and 2.47
s, respectively, and the standard deviation was 2.48 and 1.67 s.
• A discrete choice model of cyclist gap-acceptance behavior when
crossing motor traffic at a signalized intersection was given as (5),
with estimated coefficients listed in Tables II and III.
• The significant influence factors in the gap-acceptance model in-
cludes a large gap-opening vehicle type (+2.09 s), large gap-
closing vehicle (+0.68 s), left-turning maneuver (+0.72 s), and
stopping before crossing (+0.98 s).
• The significant influence factors in the lag-acceptance model in-
cludes a large gap-closing vehicle (+1.89 s) and left-turning ma-
neuver (+0.83 s).
• The average crossing bicycle group density of normal speed and
slowing speed are 3.23 and 2.38 m2 /bic. The difference between
average traffic densities of the two types of group is significant
through a t-test.
• The existence of the pedestrian crossing and pedestrians seem to
have a negative influence on the cyclist behavior, which enables
them to feel safer and thus obey the traffic light less often.
Parts of the results of this study were applied to the “microscopic
simulation on mixed traffic at signalized intersection” (see Fig. 7). The
information were used to build the basic simulation model for bicycle
traffic such as the bicycle/tricycle crossing speed generator, gap/lag
choice model, crossing group generator, etc.
Further research should focus on extending the information about cy-
clists’ behavior characteristics at signalized intersections. Several rec-
ommendations for future efforts are as follows.
299
1) It is necessary to obtain similar information at more signalized
intersections of a greater variety of situations.
2) The data-reduction procedure can be enhanced through the use
of a special computer program to detect the image of different
cyclist and extract the data from video file directly, as well as
do some statistical analysis.
3) Further studies are necessary to investigate a bicycle’s acceler-
ation and deceleration behavior.
4) Further studies are necessary to obtain more information about
group-riding characteristics, such as the headway, speed, etc.
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