On September 20, some of the research performed as a joint effort of the Active Mode Lab and the UMO Lab was demonstrated during the TU Delft Campus kick-off event. The TU Delft Campus aims to bridge scientists, students, start-ups, companies and knowledge institutions, to facilitate the collaboration between academia and practitioners in an earlier stage.

One of the projects that were showcased at the event was the UMO (Urban Mobility Observatory) project, funded by the NWO large programme. During this project, an integrated platform will be developed, that will collect, combine and archive a multitude of mobility-related data sources (e.g., sensor data, camera data, surveys and mobile phone data). One of the strengths of the UMO platform is that it will allow researchers to combine different data sources to get a better understanding of mobility-related choices that people make.

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During the TU Delft Campus kick-off event, we showed a sneak preview of the UMO platform features. A dashboard was configured that combined visualizations of GPS data and survey responses that were collected through a mobile phone application that was installed by a group of visitors of the event. Besides that, social media analyses were performed in real-time, resulting in a live word-cloud and a sentiment chart of all Twitter tweets related to the TU Delft Campus kick-off event. Finally, the dashboard showed a live video stream from the Leeghwaterstraat (Fietsstraat on the TU Delft campus). The social media analyses, the mobile phone application and the dashboard have all been developed in the last few years, mainly as part of the ALLEGRO project, and will be officially integrated with the UMO platform.

On the 17th of September Danique Ton has defended her thesis entitled ‘Unravelling mode and route choice behaviour of active mode users’ at the Delft University of Technology. Her thesis will soon be available and can be found in the repository of the TU Delft. We are happy to see that she passed this final hurdle with flying colours and wish the young new doctor all the best in her new position as a postdoc in our department.

In the morning, TRAIL organised a nice seminar to highlight this occasion, which was attended by more than 40 participants from TU Delft and other knowledge institutes in the Netherlands. Four experts in the field of travel behaviour modelling presented recent developments and applications. Prof. Patricia Mokhtarian presented a latent-class regression approach to determine the role of attitudes in perceptions of bicycle facilities. Prof. Elisabetta Cherchi studied latent constructs to model travel choice behaviour. Prof. Shlomo Bekhor discussed a new frequency-based transit assignment model which can consider online information and capacity restrictions. Prof. Bert van Wee closed the workshop with an introduction of a new concept in the field of policy-making for travel behaviour, namely that of ‘substitutability’.

Author: Alphonse Vial and Giulia Reggiani

WHAT SUMMER SCHOOL?

This August we organized two full days of active mode research for 18 Bachelors and Masters students from the University of South Florida. Together with Prof. Robert Bertini, the organizer of the trip, the students were visiting TU Delft and the Netherlands as part of a two-week summer school on sustainable transportation.

PROGRAM SNEAK PEEK:

While the first day focused on Bicycle Queue Density and Discharge, the second-day program was built around Dutch Cycling Infrastructure and Perceptions. We had an excellent Allegro-lineup, and each of the two days included theory, experiments, data collection, data processing, analyses, discussions, and eventually barbecue & sports. Experiments and data collection were performed at the Green Village (a living lab for sustainable innovation on TU Delft campus), as well as on Delft’s cycle tracks.

COOL, AND HOW WAS IT?

The feedback we received from the students was excellent. We experienced them as being interested, energetic and always looking for interaction. They became active mode researchers for 2 days, by learning how to design their own experiments and data collection plans in order to answer research questions. In fact, they all collected their own data, processed and analyzed it and finally presented the results. The experiments and data analysis were not only for educational purposes, but the students actually were at the frontier of new science. In both their experiments as well as in their analyses, they contributed to the state-of-the-art research. But most of all, they had a GOOD TIME.

ALRIGHT, AND WHO DID ALL OF THIS?

Thanks to Professor Rober Bertini for designing the summer school and for initiating the cooperation with the Allegro group. Recognitions, to the fantastic team that made it all happen: Giulia Reggiani, Lara Zomer and Alphonse Vial for the entire organization, and for leading the day on Physical and Perceived Networks. Victor Knoop, Marie-Jette Wierbos and Martijn Sparnaaij, thank you for contributing to the whole first day of research at the Green Village with insight on Densities of Active Mode Users. Finally, the students benefited from the guidance of Tim van Oijen during the data analysis and presentation session.

Last April, a large-scale cycling experiment was held in Ahoy Rotterdam as part of the ALLEGRO project to get insight into cycling behaviour. PhD candidates Alexandra Gavriilidou and Marie-Jette Wierbos are studying cycling behaviour on an individual and an aggregate level, respectively, and both encountered the problem of limited available data. Therefore, they decided to join forces to design and organise a large-scale experiment which would result in a large dataset of cycling movements that fits both research interests. With the help of associate professor Winnie Daamen, the researchers designed an experimental set-up with different traffic situations. The track layout consisted of two oval-shaped paths of 2m wide, which partially overlapped and it included a narrowing to create a bottleneck where cyclists had to reduce speed. This track design ensured that different types of  behaviour could be studied, such as priority allocation when crossing or merging, congestion patterns at the narrowing. On straight stretches, cycling movements would be captured, covering overtaking behaviour and cycling in pairs.

On the day of the experiment, in total 200 cyclists were invited to cycle for science in Ahoy Rotterdam. This location was selected for two reasons. First of all, the location needed to be indoors so a stable monitoring environment would be safeguarded, meaning no rain or light changes due to partially clouded weather. Secondly, the area needed to be sufficiently large to fit the track (100m x 40m) and the ceiling needed to be sufficiently high to enable the recording of cyclists from above. The participants were selected to create two groups. The morning group brought different bike types, such as electrical, racing and regular bikes, whereas the afternoon group consisted primarily of regular bikes. No other selection criteria was used, resulting in a varied group of participants between 17 and 89 years old.

In total 8 cameras were connected to the 10m-high ceiling of Ahoy, covering the complete track. With a duration of the experiment of approximately 8 hours of cycling movements, the 64-hours dataset will enable Alexandra and Marie-Jette to come to many scientific insights in their future work. Already, before looking at the camera images, the effort of organising the experiment has led to a scientific contribution in bicycle research. A paper on the set-up and implementation of this large-scale experiment will be presented at 89^th Annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington D.C. in January 2019.

Picture by TU Delft/Frank Auperlé

For the story of science see: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ceg/research/stories-of-science/cycling-for-science-at-ahoy/

On the 5^th and 6^th of June, two large-scale controlled pedestrian experiments were performed as part of the ALLEGRO project. The goal of these two experiments was to get insight into the following question: If, how, when, where and under which conditions do pedestrian flows stagnate in a corridor with a bidirectional flow or in a two-way crossing?

The experiments took place at the TU Delft campus, whereby during the two evenings about 140 people ranging in age from 18-70 participated. During the first evening, the experiments with the bidirectional flow through a corridor were done whilst on the second evening the crossing experiments were performed. To accommodate the experiments, one of the large exam halls of the TU Delft was transformed to be used as the site of the experiments. Large, 2 meter high, wooden obstacles were used to construct the corridor and the crossing. Multiple cameras were attached to the ceiling of the hall to record the movements of all participants whilst they were walking through the corridor or crossing. To ensure that the movements of the participants would be captured well by the cameras, they all wore white t-shirts and a red cap, distributed to them at the start of the experiment. The caps also contained a unique pattern which enables tracking of individuals and hence individual behaviour. Also, stickers on the t-shirt, located at the shoulders, enable tracking of the upper-body movements.

During both evenings, about 12 runs were performed using different flow ratios and different sets of assignments that the participants had to follow. A total of 6 combinations (two different flow ratios and three different sets of assignments) were tested, whereby every combination was run twice. Overall, this has led to multiple hours of video data which is currently being processed to extract trajectories. As soon as this process is finished, analysis of the data will start.

Picture by TU Delft/Frank Auperlé

For the story of science see: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ceg/research/stories-of-science/like-sardines-in-a-festival-can/

English:
Would you like to have some cycling exercise, make a contribution to science, or simply have a nice day off? Come and participate in a large-scale cycling experiment on April 25 in Ahoy, Rotterdam! You can register here. For more information about the experiment, click here.

Nederlands:
Fiets u graag? Wilt de wetenschap en stapje verder helpen? Of gewoon een leuk dagje uit? Doe dan mee aan een grootschalig fietsexperiment op 25 april in Ahoy, Rotterdam! Aanmelden kan via deze link. Voor meer informatie over het experiment, klik hier.

 

Held on September 7, 2016.

In 2015, AMS Institute and TU Delft have started a new scientific programme to unravel pedestrian and cyclist flows in cities coined ALLEGRO. After a successful two-day starting conference organised last year, we now took the opportunity to present and discuss the plans and results so far. The participants were (among others) the municipalities of Amsterdam and Utrecht, KIM, the engineering offices Goudappel Coffeng and Royal Haskoning DHV and the universities of Eindhoven and Delft. This diverse group of both practitioners and scientists has stimulated a fruitful discussion and interesting chats after the presentations of the ALLEGRO team. The location of this workshop was AMS, the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, an institute in which science, education, government, business partners and societal organisations are working tightly together to create solutions for complex challenges in metropolitan areas. Exactly the challenge ALLEGRO stands for.

The ALLEGRO programme deals with Active Mode Mobility from a variety of perspectives. While developing new theories and models for the behaviour of pedestrians and cyclists in cities is the core of the project, the programme aims to contribute to practice and policy as well. Almost all ALLEGRO researchers by now have started their research, and many of the projects have already resulted in very interesting and relevant results.

Presentations were given by:
Serge Hoogendoorn (chairman) – Introduction
Dorine Duives – Active Mode Urban Data Laboratory and its applications
Vincent Gong – Collecting social media data for the AM-UML and its applications
Tim van Oijen – Using apps for data collection and information provision
Florian Schneider – Empirical analysis of active mode route and activity choices
Winnie Daamen on behalf of Yufei Yuan & Bernat Goñi Ros – Modelling traffic operations
Flurin Hänseler – Modelling and estimation of pedestrian flows in train stations
Danique Ton & Lara Zomer – Theory and modelling for active mode mobility
Xiaochen Ma – Access and Egress
Ilse Galama – Design of active mode networks
Winnie Daamen on behalf of Haneen Farah – Introduction into the microscopic modelling project
Victor Knoop – Introduction into the macroscopic modelling project

The programme covered different themes, data collection and analyses, modelling, and theory formulation. After each presentation, a designated member of the audience gave feedback, consisting of both questions and suggestions for further research directions. The latter was especially helpful for the PhD students who just started, but gave all researchers an idea of the needs and desires of the practitioners. At the end of each session, feedback and discussion was initiated for the other members of the audience. Given the highly relevant research topic and the interesting results, the lively discussions continued during the breaks and during the final drinks.

All in all, we can conclude that this was a very fruitful day, with valuable information exchange between researchers and practitioners. We are looking forward to the next occasion!

On the 10th of May, a controlled experiment to study cycling behaviour was performed. This experiment collected bicycle trajectory data in unhindered and interacting situations to get insight into cyclist behaviour. The resulting datasets can be used to study interaction behaviour of cyclist flows, to calibrate the newly-developed cyclist model, to validate and develop new/improved theories of cyclist behaviour, and to facilitate other related bicyclist research.

This experiment, part of the ALLEGRO project, was supported by 4 master students, 12 experiment participants and colleagues from the Transport and Planning laboratory of TU Delft. It took place at the Berlageweg – a bicycle path – intersected with the main bicycle path in front of the CiTG building at the TU Delft campus. Participants conducted predefined manoeuvres under unhindered and interacting situations. In the unhindered situation, participants started, stopped, and cycled as they liked. In the interacting situations, cyclists were overtaking or they had face-to-face encounters. The experiment was recorded with video cameras located above the experiment area. All bicycles were similar OV-bikes, so only the behaviour of the cyclist was observed, not the behaviour of the bike. Each participant was equipped with identifiers (coloured hats, number tabs, etc.) for video capturing and monitoring purposes, so they could be recognised in the video footage. Now extracting trajectory data from video footages is in progress.

Pictures by TU Delft/Frank Auperlé:

Imagine you would be standing in front of the train station in Delft and you need to go to a larger supermarket, do you know the one that is most close to you, preferably in meters and minutes? Most likely you are mistaken, or your perceived distance or travel time is different from the real ones. Did you know that the direct distance to the Aldi at the Westlandseweg is shorter than to the Jumbo at Bastiaansplein? Many travel behaviour models (incorrectly) assume that people do have perfect information about the urban environment.

After several weeks of piloting, this Thursday a team of ALLEGRO and department of Transport and Planning collected surveys at the Beestenmarkt (Delft). Citizens, visitors and tourists were asked to state their perceived distance and direction between several locations within Delft.
After processing and analysing the data, the results will help us to quantify urban cognition by assessing people’s perception of space, which is different from the real environment. As part of the ERC project lead by Serge Hoogendoorn on ‘unrAveLLing active modE travellinG and tRaffic’, we hope to integrate our findings into travel models to make them a bit more (ir)rational.