Introducing a Model for Bicycle Route Network Design (Case Study of Qom City)

Bicycles, as a non-motorised transportation mode, have been widely used in developed countries. Riding a bicycle not only yields benefits to the rider, but also to society as a whole due to reduced fossil fuel consumption and pollution levels. Several factors have hindered the wide-spread use of bicycles as a mode of transport in developing countries, the most important one being the lack of infrastructure. In this research, a model is proposed to assign bicycle routes based on feasibility criteria, including BCI, BLOS, RSI, and IEI. The proposed model is implemented to assign the bicycle routes in a city that has the information required by the model. The objective function of the model is defined as the minimization of the total cost of implementation, including capital costs, costs from travel time, safety considerations and environmental costs. The model is evaluated based on the actual data collected from the city of Qom, and the results show that the proposed model is sensitive to the geometry and traffic specification of roads.