Detour characteristics of bicycles for collision avoidance in the bicycle-pedestrian mixed traffic

The pedestrian-bicycle mixed crowd sharing the same space is common on city roads and the detour behaviour of fast-moving bicycles results in the potential collision risk. To investigate the detour characteristics of bicycles, we conducted controlled experiments in which the mixed crowd performed uni-directional motion. The results show that colliding objects moving in a certain range can urge bicycles to change their motion direction for collision avoidance. The steering and relative angles are in connection with the relative positions between the detour bicycles and the colliding objects. However, the instantaneous/relative speed of detour bicycles does not influence cyclists’ decisions to detour. Comparing the time-to-collision (ttc), the high conflict risk emerges when the colliding objects move towards the initial path of the detour bicycle. This study could provide a better understanding of bicycle-pedestrian mixed crowd and offer the fundamental parameters to build a bicycle-pedestrian mixed traffic model. © 2025 Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies Limited.