Research Projects

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Research Projects

METRANS
STATUS: Complete YEAR: 2014 TOPIC AREA: Sustainability, energy, and health CENTER: MetroFreight

Freight in a Bicycle-Friendly City: Exploratory Analysis with New York City Open Data

Project Summary

Project number: MF-3.2a
Funding source: Volvo Research and Educational Foundations

Performance period: 1/1/2014 to 12/31/2016

 

Project description

This project employs a variety of open data sets to examine how New York City's growing bicycle infrastructure has had an impact on travel and parking conditions for commercial vehicles (CVs), and to investigate the interactions that occur between CVs and bicycles on multimodal urban streets. The project was conducted in three stages. First, a spatial analysis of the city's dedicated bicycle and local truck routes was performed to quantify the extent of network overlap and changes that have
occurred since 2000. Next, a spatial and statistical analysis of bicycle collisions extracted from the New York Police Department's motor vehicle collision database was conducted to explore infrastructure and demand characteristics indicative of freight-bicycle conflicts. Finally, CV-bicycle lane parking violations were extracted from a New York City Department of Finance's parking violation database to examine parking challenges in bicycle-friendly areas; field data were also collection in three critical locations. The project identified several challenges for CV operations. Potential future research efforts to address emerging questions requiring further investigation are also discussed.

P.I. NAME & ADDRESS

Alison Conway
Associate Director, New Initiatives, University Transportation Research Center (UTRC), Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering
140th St. and Convent Ave
Steinman Hall T-195New York, NY 10031
United States
[email protected]