CEE’s Eleni Christofa, Chengbo Ai, and Collaborators Complete Safety Research on Bus Stops and Bike Lanes for MassDOT

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Shared and dedicated bike lanes, raised cycle tracks, and other bike infrastructure are increasingly introduced in many areas to improve bicyclist safety and comfort. However, separated bike lanes are now often located adjacent to bus stops, having a direct impact on transit-user accessibility and safety. In response to this safety issue, Professor Eleni Christofa (principal investigator or PI) and Associate Professor Chengbo Ai (co-PI) of the UMass Amherst Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department recently completed a study for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) on “Accessible Bus Stop Design in the Presence of Bike Lanes,” with a particular focus on the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) system. See Full Report.pdf. 

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Christofa collaborated on the MassDOT study with Ai and a second co-PI, Professor of Civil Engineering Peter Furth of Northeastern University. Graduate research assistants Yu-Min Yang, Dewan Tanvir Ahammed, and Nathan David Obeng-Amoako also contributed to the project.

So-called “floating bus stops” are also referred to as bus islands and often include a raised platform that allows people to get on and off the bus. Floating bus stops are adjacent to protected bike lanes, requiring transit riders to cross the bike lane to access the bus stop. While floating bus stops eliminate conflicts between buses and bicycles, they introduce potential conflicts between bicyclists and bus riders.

According to Christofa and her research team, “Floating bus stops require transit riders to cross an active bike lane to access the bus-boarding area, increasing the likelihood of bicyclist-rider conflicts, [and especially] impacting the accessibility and safety of [bus] riders with visual, hearing, or mobility impairments.” 

With those challenges in mind, say Christofa and her team, “The goal of this project is to obtain a better understanding of the impacts of bicycle infrastructure on transit-user safety (e.g., conflicts between bicyclists traveling on adjacent bike lanes and transit riders), on bus stop accessibility, and the exploration of mitigation plans and designs that will ensure an accessible, equitable, and safe travel experience for all riders.” 

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As the team explains its research process, “Community and professional outreach contributed to an understanding of challenges associated with floating bus stops, especially for transit riders with visual, hearing, and mobility impairments, and assisted with a summary of lessons learned from other cities that have a history of implementing floating bus stops.” 

The researchers also employed LiDAR and video cameras at five bus stops in the Greater Boston area to capture trajectory data for both bicyclists and bus riders, along with bus-stop inventory data. 

The researchers say that “All of this information was used to develop design recommendations that improve safety and accessibility for all users, as well as a step-by-step, system-wide procedure for assessing existing floating bus stops and suggesting improvements.”

One long-term aim of this project is to develop guidelines for floating-bus-stop design that municipalities can implement when designing bus stops in their jurisdictions. This project was completed as part of the MassDOT Research Program with funding from Federal Highway Administration State Planning and Research.