BIKING IS MORE POPULAR THAN EVER BEFORE – AUTOTURN PROTM – THE PERFECT TOOL TO PLAN THE INFRASTRUCTURE
More and more people rediscover their love for bicycles and cover short and longer distances on their bikes. The pandemic has been speeding up this trend towards two-wheeled vehicles. We also see that governing authorities are announcing a strong expansion of the cycling infrastructure and simultaneously are promising a rapid implementation. Significant amounts of money have been allocated to promoting cycling so that its appeal will be increased even further.
As exciting as this trend is, it poses new challenges for road safety experts. That’s why Transoft Solutions offers new features in its AutoTURN PRO software, to ensure an all-inclusive design. The simulation tool supports engineers and designers in reducing guesswork and design errors and easily plan safe bicycle facilities and lanes.
Optimized designs with enhanced analysis and visualization
AutoTURN PRO, the most advanced and comprehensive swept path software available, helps to check your site and road designs easily, to ensure that all types of vehicles can move about safely and efficiently. In this context we need to consider that bicycles and other types of cycles move and turn differently than larger motorized vehicles.
The new swept path analysis tool in AutoTURN PRO takes all the key parameters that influence how bicycles move and turn into account, such as the lean angle and friction coefficients. The software is able to assess the data of standard design bicycles and of those built to custom specification. It lays out the paths automatically and dynamically, providing engineers with reliable simulation results.
This feature is not only available for standard bicycles, but also for many variants: standard bikes with trailers, with single-wheel trailers, bikes with rear and/or front cargo racks, mopeds, scooters and others.
In all these simulations the leaning of the bicycle is considered at appropriate speeds. The so-called “rider’s box”, which is part of the vehicle body, represents the cyclist and the required clearances.
Once the cyclist enters into an arc manoeuvre, the clearance width has to increase as the cyclist leans towards the inside of the turn.
Currently the AutoTURN PRO library offers more than 2400 vehicles, integrating national standards and guidelines. You will find more than a dozen configurations of bicycles, each defined by certain parameters like the wheelbase and tyre sizes, number of wheels, and the rider’s box with the capability to determine the physical width of the rider, including handlebar and pedal height. Just follow the link to see, how easy it is to set up and run a cycle simulation with AutoTURN PRO.
Best answer in practical applications
Sustrans, an organization that specializes in connecting people and places, has been working with AutoTURN PRO for a long time. Guilio Ferrini, CEng MICE, Head of Built Environment, gave an insight into the challenges that arise when streets and town squares are to be redesigned to make them safer and easier to navigate. He explained how the software supported his design work, again and again.
His specific issue was the simulation of footpath analyses for bicycles. Many existing guideline documents and standards were used in their designs, both UK based and abroad, but they ran into a few limitations. For example, the simulations of complex manoeuvres such as S turns or chicane movements were not possible and a relationship between speed and turning radius was only available for standard bicycles, but not for modified ones. So how were they to consider all the cargo bikes, recumbent bikes and tandems? How should they find a clear way to include everyone in the design? And how would they show people what the designs are based on? So many questions to which Transoft Solutions had a clear answer: AutoTURN PRO.
One of the first projects in which Sustrans used AutoTURN PRO was the Brockwell Park, Gipsy Hill route in Lambeth (London). It was an area with lots of bicycle traffic, street parking, quite high traffic volumes and high speeds.
As the road connects residential areas with a park and several schools, there was a real need to provide a safe space for people walking and cycling.
Giulio Ferrini: ”First a detailed planning proposal with improvements was developed: segregated cycle tracks with improvements for pedestrians as well, widened footways, benches, cycling parking and an effort to encourage cyclists to slow down / deflect a little bit and yield to pedestrians at the zebra crossings. At the same time, we wanted to make sure that they would be able to do so comfortably and that two vehicles, two cyclists, could still pass each other on the cycle track.”
This requirement could be simulated very easily with the software. The tool clearly showed the space requirement, it displayed the cycle going through with the trailer at the back and the necessary distances.
It was very valuable for the experts to show the space requirements in real time, to see the speed at which someone is going to go through the area and to identify the potential conflicts early in the design stages. It’s very helpful to showcase to a client or stakeholder what the space will look like in real life and how the movements of the cycles will work.
Another application case was a nearby junction, quite tricky, as the segregated track splits from being bi- directional in the North to only going with the flow in the South. The idea was to add zebra crossings to the pedestrian zone, to slow speeds and to give priority to pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore, more space for cyclists was created, speed bumps were installed and the junction was tightened. “To ensure that people cycling through the junction would not have any issues, we ran a simulation using Auto TURN PRO’s unique cycle path analysis, in this case with someone on a tandem. The simulation clearly showed how the tandem approached the curves, how it moved in space and how close it came to any sort of obstructions.” elaborated Ferrini.
Giulio Ferrini: “AutoTURN PRO became a main asset!”
At Sustrans, the AutoTURN PRO software has become an important instrument, which is often used in tenders and which helps to demonstrate innovation. It is a wonderful tool for rethinking infrastructure and simply checking the functionality of different options.
After more than a year of research and development, the bicycle swept path analysis feature was included in AutoTURN PRO version 11.0, released in March 2020. Including it as a feature in Transoft’s existing swept path analysis software means that users benefit by being able to simulate bicycle manoeuvres of modified bicycles alongside those of the more than 1500 guideline-based and almost 900 manufacturer-based vehicles already included in AutoTURN PRO.