A NEW STRATEGY FOR THE DESIGN OF BICYCLE PATHWAYS NETWORKS

In the last years there was an increase of interest of decision makers about bicycle use as alternative travel mode to the predominant auto mode. Starting from these considerations, the objective of the research is the development of a procedure for the definition of bicycle facilities in terms of bicycle pathways. The goal is the increase of the attractiveness of cycling developing a safe and of quality bicycle network for cities characterized by cities with poor level of facilities for bicycle and a very low current bicycle share of trips. A preliminary phase of identification of the bicycle users' needs has been carried out by means of a specific experimentations of 18 months, based on the creation of the travel diary of 30 bicycle users from the city of Rome. Such data are related to the comparison between shortest and observed paths, the use of existing bicycle infrastructures, the characteristics of the links of the road network shared with cars. The design methodology is based on the hypothesis that bicycles are obliged to travel sharing the road sections with other components, using dedicated pathways only for a part of the travel. Such approach permits also to explicitly take into account the significant budget constraints of local administrations.