Automated Bicycle Counting System's Prototype to Evaluate the Necessity of New Bicycle Lanes in Jelgava City

Abstract

Every year the number of vehicles on the road is increasing. But there are people that start to choose public transport or greener transportation options like bicycles or electric cars over typical fuel cars. Regarding bicycle usage, the problems that arise are related to insufficient bicycle lanes and determination of future lane locations, so that the resources used for bicycle lane construction would be properly invested. To resolve mentioned problems municipality first need to learn where the suitable bicycle lane location for cyclists should be. Such a task can be done by applying a cyclist counting system. This paper describes a portable automatic cyclist counting system’s prototype for bicycle lane location planning and also identifies the limitations for such a system. Proposed prototype is based on rubber tubes and pressure sensors, Wi-Fi module and open source electronic platform Arduino. This study is carried out within the ERANet-LAC project RETRACT (Enabling resilient urban transportation systems in smart cities).