Expenses regarding road accidents yearly have substantial costs for the Danish government. Reducing road accidents is a big part of the national road safety audit, and data regarding accidents is an essential part of this task. These data is comprehensive and permits the road authority to categorize certain factors as place of accident, time of accident, involved vehicles and involved persons. Planning the road safety audit on the basis of accident data requires these to be precise and numerous. In reality only a small percentage of road accidents are reported to the police and hospitals. Furthermore, accidents are uncommon and data regarding accidents are usually gathered over a number of years. It is therefore necessary for the road authority to "wait" for accidents to happen, in order to plan modifications to the road network.
This report aims to examine whether using bicycle shunts in signalized intersections with regard to safety has any consequences for cyclists and pedestrians. This is done by using near accidents, instead of accidents, when evaluating a traffic initiative. This is done by using the Dutch conflict observation technique, DOCTOR. This technique uses values of time to determine whether these near accidents can be considered as serious or not.
This is done by selecting four intersections in Odense, involving two case intersections and two reference intersections. The two case intersections is established with bicycle shunts and the two reference intersections is not. The two case intersections is the intersection between Vindegade and Jernbanegade and the intersection between Thomas B. Thriges Gade and Østre Stationsvej. The two reference intersections are the intersection between Vindegade and Klostervej and the intersection between Østre Stationsvej and Jernbanegade. Each case intersection is paired with a reference intersection corresponding to one pair where the cyclists enters a bicycle path when a right turn is finished and a pair where the cyclists enters the road. The pairs are as follows.
• Vindegade/Jernbanegade and Vindegade/Klostervej
• Thomas B. Thriges Gade/Østre Stationsvej and Østre Stationsvej/Jernbanegade
Each intersections has been videotaped in order to process the experienced near accidents. Every intersection have been selected on the basis of there being a reasonable quantity of cyclists and pedestrians who interacts.
It is not possible to conclude if usage of bicycle shunts in signalized intersections has any impact on the safety of vulnerable road users. This is due to major differences in the exposure of vulnerable road users in the four selected intersections. There are however observed tendencies who points towards that not having a bicycle path after a bicycle shunt causes more conflicts between cyclists.