What makes a route safer for cyclists? A study on cycling collisions in Lancaster

This study aims to understand the factors that make a route safer for cyclists. We use cycling collision data from the city of Lancaster and focus on the locations where the collision numbers vary. We counted the number of vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles both on a weekday and on a weekend. The presence of bike lanes, pedestrian crossings, streetlights and signage is analysed, and the cycle lanes are observed to see if there are any obstacles (e.g., parked cars), if they are shared with cars, or if they are well maintained or not (i.e. road surface conditions) during the field survey. We also used space syntax analysis to understand the spatial characteristics of those routes with higher cycling potential and used isovists analysis to evaluate the visibility of the locations where the number of collisions is higher and lower. This study helps us to understand the visual and spatial attributes of urban locations with higher cyclist-collision risk and it also provides information to understand the ways in which cycling routes might be designed and/or existing routes improved.