It is a daily scenario on German roads: Cyclists are overtaken by motor vehicles at a small distance - despite the strict regulations in the new StVO amendment. This is a stressful situation for cyclists. Their subjective feeling of safety is greatly reduced. For some, this is even an important reason to use the bicycle less in everyday life than they actually want to. Traffic planners are therefore looking individually at the municipalities to see where such close contact between cyclists and motor vehicles can be avoided through structural interventions in the infrastructure.

To achieve this, it is first necessary to identify the places in the city where motorised and cycling road users come (too) close to each other. This is where the joint project "Space2Ride" in Leipzig comes into play from July 2021. Cameras with integrated sensors for measuring lateral distances will be used on bicycles. They create a database for the lateral overtaking distance of cyclists by motor vehicles. The "Space2Ride" project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) as part of the mFUND innovation initiative with a total of 100,000 euros. The project will run from July 2021 to June 2022.

Critical infrastructure situations are made visible automatically

By analysing the data, relevant influencing factors can be identified and, in close cooperation with the city of Leipzig, the safety of cyclists can be significantly improved. "The project is intended to contribute to making critical infrastructure situations visible in an automated way and thus to making cycling safer," says Dipl.-Ing. Sven Lißner, research assistant and project coordinator at the Chair of Transport Ecology of the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at TU Dresden." Space2Ride" is a joint project of the Chair of Transport Ecology and Dashfactory GmbH in Jena.

In a first step, test persons in the study area Leipzig will be selected via an online survey. The aim is to have a test group of at least 200 cyclists that is representative of the population. Subsequently, the sensors ("dashbikes") will be distributed to the test persons in the form of a rear light. This is followed by a field phase lasting several weeks. Lelia König, CEO at Dashfactory GmbH, explains: "During the field phase, each test person carries the sensor along everyday cycling routes and automatically records the lateral overtaking distances of passing motor vehicles." The recorded data is then blended with spatial structure features and compared with field observations. "In this way, we want to identify parameters that favour overtaking too closely," says Sven Lißner. The data can then be used in bicycle planning processes.

The date for the kick-off meeting of the project partners and opportunities to participate in the empirical study will be announced on the project page of the Chair of Transport Ecology at TU Dresden and via the social media channels of Dashfactory GmbH.