FLOW

Furthering Less Congestion by Creating Opportunities for More Walking and Cycling

  • Project no.250079
  • Duration 05/2015 - 04/2018

Current mainstream transport demand and traffic flow modelling do not fully and accurately reflect the role cycling and walking play in congestion (reduction). Only recently have analysis techniques become powerful enough to enable walking and cycling to be fully considered in the analysis. As a result, most cities do currently not consider walking and cycling measures among their range of options to reduce congestion. FLOW aims to create a new level of understanding among the community of transport professionals and policy makers in Europe towards understanding the congestion reduction benefits of walking and cycling as modes of transport. This will help to elevate walking and cycling to the same level of professional (model-based) impact assessment as motorised modes. The project takes a three phase approach to achieve this goal:

1) Methodology and Portfolio Definition: FLOW will develop an innovative quantitative and qualitative understanding of the congestion busting potential of a range of cycling and walking measures. This will provide the scientific basis upon which the new paradigm will be developed of setting walking and cycling on an equal footing with other measures for congestion reduction. The Wuppertal Institute leads the Work Package which is dedicated to the methodology development.

The FLOW methodology will serve as the foundation for creating the new paradigm in which walking and cycling measures are used as congestion busting measures. The first step is to broaden the definition of congestion to move away from the current focus on journey time to include additional aspects such as reliability and accessibility. This refined definition can then be integrated into macroscopic transport planning softwares. FLOW will excercise this based on PTV VISUM. PTV VISSIM and PTV VISWALK microscopic transport planning software will be extended to accurately analyse FLOW measures being simulated and implemented in the six FLOW partner cities.

2) Scenarios and Take up: This new paradigm will be fostered and promoted in the FLOW partner and exchange cities through using the FLOW methodology and assessment tools to analyse the impact of walking and cycling measures on congestion reduction. The Wuppertal Institute assists the city of Sofia in implementing a cycle-to-work campaign and to perform the corresponding impact assessment.

3) Rollout and exploitation: The FLOW findings will be rolled out and exploited across Europe by increasing knowledge and providing evidence in favour of using walking and cycling measures to combat congestion. 


Further project information

Links


Cookie Settings

Cookies help us to constantly improve the website for you. By clicking on the "Allow cookies" button, you agree to the use of cookies. For further information on the use of cookies or to change your settings, please click on More about the use and rejection of cookies.