Introduction

Bicycling provides many positive outcomes at individual- and population-levels, from increased physical activity to reduced congestion. One of the main barriers to increased levels of bicycling is safety and injury risk from motor vehicles and from single-bicycle crashes. One known hazard is bicycle crashes at rail crossings where the bicycle wheel is caught in the flangeway causing loss of control.

Methods

This study evaluates two realignments, or “jughandle” designs to increase the angle of a skewed crossing in an urban environment. Using continuous video analysis over two 2-month periods, this is the first empirical analysis of safety performance of this infrastructure.

Results

The realignment reduced crash risk by 98% (C.I. 86.3%–99.7%), from 4.0 to 0.1 crashes per 1000 crossings (or 53 crashes before to 1 crash after). Bicycling across at more than 30° eliminates almost all risk by reducing the severity of the crash. There were 19 crashes with minor injury and one was severe out of 32 observed crashes before the jughandle design, while only one non-injury crash was observed after the treatment. More than 90% of riders complied with the new design, following the desired path.

Conclusion

The study shows that the “jughandle” realignment of bicycle crossings at the railway can virtually eliminate the risk of single bicycle crashes. Most of the riders complied with the realigned path by the use of low-cost implementation of pavement marking. However, we can expect better compliance rate and, subsequently, lower crash rate by the application of prominent mitigation techniques such as bollards and surface treatment.

中文翻译：

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把手设计几乎可以消除铁路道口的单车撞车事故

介绍

从增加体力活动到减少交通拥堵，骑自行车可以在个人和人口层面带来许多积极成果。导致骑行水平提高的主要障碍之一是机动车辆和单车事故的安全和伤害风险。一种已知的危害是自行车在铁路交叉口撞车，其中自行车车轮被卡在法兰槽中，导致失去控制。

方法

这项研究评估了两种重新排列或“ jughandle”设计，以增加城市环境中斜交的角度。通过在两个2个月的时间内进行连续视频分析，这是该基础设施安全性能的第一个实证分析。

结果

调整后的撞车风险降低了98％（CI 86.3％–99.7％），从每1000个交叉路口撞车事故中有4.0起降至0.1起（或53次撞车之前为1次撞车之后）。在30度以上骑行时可以降低撞车的严重性，从而消除了几乎所有危险。进行前叉设计之前，有19起撞车事故，造成轻伤，其中32起撞车事故中有1起是严重撞车事故，而在处理之后，仅观察到1起非受伤撞车事故。超过90％的骑手遵循了理想的路线，并采用了新设计。

结论

研究表明，铁路交叉口的“操纵柄”调整实际上可以消除单次自行车撞车的风险。大多数骑手通过使用低成本的路面标记来遵守重新调整的路线。但是，我们可以期望通过应用显着的缓解技术（例如系缆柱和表面处理）来提高合规率，并降低碰撞率。