Campero Jurado, Manuel (INRIA), De Nunzio, Giovanni (IFP Energies nouvelles), Canudas de Wit, Carlos (CNRS, GIPSA-Lab, Grenoble France)

Safety-Oriented Design of Cycling Infrastructure Minimizing Impact on Vehicular Traffic

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "S06b-Safety, Sensing, and Infrastructure Design for Vulnerable Road Users" (WE-EA-T6), Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 14:10−14:30, Surfers Paradise 3

2025 IEEE 28th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), November 18-21, 2025, Gold Coast, Australia

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on October 19, 2025

Abstract

Designing safer cycling infrastructure without causing major traffic delays is a key challenge in city planning. This paper presents a bi-level optimization framework to address and solve this problem. The upper level plans bike lane upgrades to reduce cyclists' exposure to traffic, while ensuring car travel times remain reasonable despite potential impacts on road capacity. The lower level models and determines cyclists’ route choices based on factors such as slope, turns, and traffic conditions on bike paths. We present a case study for Grenoble network, France, and a safety-oriented upgrade of the existing cycling infrastructure is determined using a genetic algorithm. To understand how cars are affected by such a modification of the cycling infrastructure, we simulate how drivers might change their routes after bike lanes upgrades. Our results show that cyclists' safety can be improved with only small impacts on car travel times, thus highlighting the potential of this approach to support safer, more sustainable urban mobility.