Active mobility modes such as walking and cycling are increasingly emphasised in urban transportation due to their sustainability and health benefits. However, the growing use of these modes heightens the potential for conflicts, especially where pedestrians and cyclists share limited space. Understanding the interaction between these users is essential for designing safe and efficient infrastructure. This study investigates pedestrian behavioural responses when crossing bike paths with oncoming cyclists, with the goal of enhancing the accuracy of pedestrian modelling in the MassMotion simulation tool developed by Arup.
Focussing on sideways crossing scenarios, which are critical due to their frequency and potential danger, the research addresses how pedestrians adapt their movement patterns in response to cyclists' proximity and trajectory. Unlike previous studies that primarily examine head-on or rear-end conflicts, this research utilises post-encroachment time (PET) as a conflict measure to capture a broader spectrum of interactions. Trajectory data from smart sensors at two intersections on the TU Delft campus were used, encompassing over 289 000 trajectories collected over a month.
The study isolates 7,310 pedestrian interactions with cyclists, with particular attention to 4,780 one-on-one crossing events. It distinguishes cases where pedestrians crossed either before or after a cyclist and compares them to non-crossing trajectories. Results indicate that pedestrians are more likely to stop when the PET is between 0–3 seconds, particularly when crossing after a cyclist, with stopping occurring in about 35% of such cases. The average stopping distance was found to be just over 3 meters, and slightly less (2.5 meters) when pedestrians walked alongside the bike path before crossing.
Additionally, the study introduces a method for predicting PET values in real-time, allowing for a dynamic understanding of pedestrian decision-making. When predicted PET values fall below 1 second, indicating a potential collision, pedestrians are more likely to yield by stopping or slowing down. Deviation analysis further shows that around 20% of pedestrians crossing behind cyclists veer off their straight path, often moving slightly toward the cyclist to complete the crossing sooner.
These behavioural insights reveal anticipatory adaptations by pedestrians, such as slowing, stopping, or deviating, in response to perceived risk. The findings can inform more realistic simulation models, improve infrastructure design, and guide policy decisions aimed at enhancing safety at pedestrian-cyclist crossings. Future work should expand to cyclist behaviours and model calibration for improved predictive capacity.

The deployment of moving sensor platforms (e.g., self-driving cars, drones, and other instances) with advanced sensing is rapidly increasing the capture of human features at unprecedented temporal and spatial scales, especially in cities. This thesis advances knowledge on extracting information from this novel data source for traffic research and practice, while highlighting implications for privacy and beyond. Findings provide insights for traffic control and management, policy development, and anyone involved in responsible urban innovation.

This research provides insight into ways to increase accessibility for Planned Special Events (PSEs) via discrete choice modelling. A special focus within this study is put into the AFAS AZ Stadium in Alkmaar. During the events held at the AFAS AZ Stadium disturbances are experienced by its visitors with regard to crowding levels and access/egress times. Quantifying the traffic volume on the infrastructure around the venue is done via revealed preference methods. Cyclists are counted via pneumatic tubes. Whereas pedestrians are measured via radio-wave sensors. To find ways to mitigate these problems, interviews are held with organisers of similar PSEs within The Netherlands.

To find the effectiveness of the obtained accessibility measures a stated preference study is held. From this study it is obtained that the transportation mode habit that one has is a key factor within the mode choice. Besides the effect on accessibility additional decision factors are discussed to find the best measure which can be applied best at the AFAS AZ Stadium. Based on the decision factors and the performance of the accessibility measures a total of six effective measures are determined.

Cycling has gained popularity worldwide, but little is known about the choice behaviour of people searching for a bicycle parking spot in the city centre. Formal parking spaces provided in the city centre are currently often underutilised, whilst many people use fly parking, which causes nuisance. This thesis aims to identify the most effective communication strategy to reduce the utilisation of fly parking and whether this differs for distinct user groups. Traffic signs were chosen as a means to present the different communication strategies. Information on choice behaviour was gathered with the use of a stated preference survey. Discrete choice modelling was used to analyse this data. The results show communication prohibiting the use of fly parking work very effectively in reducing fly parking. Interactions of socio-demographics and communication strategies were also found, indicating that belonging to a certain user group affects the effectiveness of the different communication strategies. What should be noted is that the effect of the interactions is marginal compared to the effect of the communication strategy itself. Meaning that the effectiveness of the communication strategy itself is most important. The research also tested how well traffic signs performed as a means of delivering the communication. It was concluded that solely showing traffic signs without providing any prior or other information is not very effective.

Comparing the performance of distribution functions and a discrete choice model, on a mode & destination choice in a tour-based model. An discrete choice model is composed for a tour-based model. Both choice models are implemented in a large-scale tour-based model and the performances are compared.

Increased complexity on the waterway asks for more insight into distances between vessels. A method is created to determine the ship domain in a port area based on AIS data analysis. The method includes location, encounter types, relative position and ship-specific parameters.

The aim of this research is to develop a transport model that is able to identify potential conflicts and bottlenecks for nautical recreational activities in the IJburgbaai, an open-space water area in the eastern part of Amsterdam.

This study has investigated the effect of the urban environment on pedestrian route choice behaviour, for walking routes to and from train stations in the Netherlands. To the best knowledge of the author, this is the first pedestrian route choice study which is performed at country-level scope. This was made possible by applying an innovative quasi-revealed preference approach. Respondents self-reported their route preferences through an online GIS survey. Outputs were subsequently analysed by overlaying route data with a range of open geodata sources and searching for statistical similarities between certain urban features and (in)frequently taken routes. Results from statistical testing are verified by testing these against a qualitative text-coding analysis. The study finds that pedestrians in the Netherlands have a strong preference for the route which they perceive to be fastest, especially when they are en-route to a train station. Pedestrians dislike features which they perceive as ’slowing’ them down such as traffic lights. Detours are found somewhat more often on from-station routes, with such detours leading via environments which are attractive for social reseasons such as shops or busy streets. The method was found to work fairly well and should now be tested on a larger population sample with more variables.

Although many agree that the use of bicycles improves mobility and quality of life in a city, much less clear is how to assess the progress being made in this direction and how to plan bikeable cities. The bikeability of a city depends on many diverse and interrelated factors such as the land use and transport system, culture and social norms, as well as individuals’ perceptions. Among the many factors influencing bikeability the infrastructure network, made of streets and intersections, is a fundamental component to allow safe and convenient cycling in a city. For this reason, this thesis focuses on infrastructure-related bikeability aspects and how to assess them. Planning for bicycle infrastructure has been piece-wise and location-specific resulting in every city developing its own best practices without contributing to a more general theoretical guidance on how to assess and develop attractive and
convenient bicycle networks. Since a systematic approach to bicycle infrastructure evaluation and planning is lacking we formulate the following research goal:

To gain empirical knowledge on bicycle infrastructure networks and develop methodological tools to assess infrastructure-related bikeability.

As one of the most important freight transportation modes, maritime transport has been the backbone of international trade and global economy. From the cargo flow point of view, seaports and inland shipping link the individual countries and the global waterborne transportation networks. To analyze the current ship traffic and port performance or predict future scenarios, understanding ship behavior in ports and waterways is necessary. However, the depicted sailing environment is in the current studies far simpler than the real-life ports and waterways. To this end, we formulate the following research objective:
to gain empirical knowledge of ship behavior in real-life sailing environments and to empirically investigate the influencing mechanisms of intrinsic and external factors.

This thesis constitutes a first step towards measuring the passenger capacity of station platforms. First, it defines platform capacity on the basis of the locations of queues at exit escalators from platforms, the presence of passengers in the platform-edge danger zone and the duration of stops. It then renders capacity measurable using real-life data covering train stops and passenger behaviour on platforms.

In the Netherlands, the bicycle is a popular means of transport. One of the benefits of cycling is improved health due to more physical activity. However, cycling also causes a health burden due to the many cycling accidents in the Netherlands. The share of single bicycle accidents, where no collision with another road user is involved, has increased over the past years. In 2000 only 10% of all bicycle accidents were single bicycle accidents, while in 2018 this increased to 35%. One of the potential causes for single bicycle accidents is narrow bicycle paths. This research focussed on the influence of the bicycle path width of narrow bidirectional bicycle paths on steering behaviour, which can support a discussion on the required minimum width for bicycle paths in the guidelines. A controlled experiment is conducted to collect data of steering behaviour variables on different bicycle path widths while controlling other influencing factors. The results of the experiment show that cyclists cycle significantly closer to the path edge on narrower bicycle paths (55.6 centimeter on a 2-meter wide path and 37 centimeter on a 1-meter wide path), while there are no differences in average steering angle. An oncoming cyclist, which is in the experiment represented by a parked bicycle, forces cyclists to cycle even closer to the path edge, which makes the minimum distance to the path edge smaller. The minimum distance to the path edge becomes 15.1 centimeter on a 1.5-meter wide path. This smaller distance to the path edge increases the risk of riding off the path, which makes the narrower paths less safe. A questionnaire was used to examine the perception of the different path widths. The perceived safety of cyclists decreased on narrower bicycle paths. A 2-meter wide bidirectional bicycle path is considered safe to pass others by all participants, but on a 1.5-meter wide path this is only considered safe by half of the participants. The main research question was “What is the influence of the width of bidirectional bicycle paths on cyclists’ steering behaviour?”. It can be concluded that lateral position is related to the width of bidirectional bicycle paths, while steering angle rotation is not related to the width of bicycle paths. The results of the experiment are transferable to real-life traffic conditions, but do not include the variety in infrastructural conditions, cyclist ages and bicycle types. These varieties in real-life traffic conditions might increase the required bicycle path width.

Knowledge about the way how the bicycle is used for activity participation is still scarce. This thesis provides empirical insights into typical activity-travel behaviour of cyclists. A special focus is put on the spatial dimension of activity-travelling by bicycle and its determinants. The findings can be used to design more bicycle-friendly urban environments.

As the title suggests, cyclists are the main topic of this dissertation
and more specifically, their behaviour while they are ‘in motion’. The
term ‘in motion’ is used in the title to represent microscopic operational
cycling behaviour, which is the behaviour of cyclists, treated as individuals
(microscopic level), while they are riding their bicycle and making
decisions on how to interact with other traffic participants and with the
infrastructure (operational level). Within this dissertation, models are
developed to capture this behaviour using data collected for this purpose.
Further empirical data analyses led to more behavioural insights
and design recommendations were provided based on the findings. In
this summary, each of these elements is shortly discussed, along with
the need for this research.

This research investigates the speed behaviour and safety effects on cyclists and mopeds sharing the cyclist T-Intersection with and without the application of a lane marking nudge. Unsignalised cyclist T-Intersection gives rise to more safety-critical instances, which include unsafe braking and evasive maneuvers. It is also found that uncontrolled T-intersection can create an issue when priority is assigned to the intersecting (right) arm because drivers on the straight road have a high perception of priority and fail-to-yield. Even though many studies have analysed the positive influence of the lane markings for cars, the influence of it on cyclists have not been explored. The safety criticality in this research is investigated using critical deceleration and jerk as Surrogate Safety Measures, because they are found to perform better at identifying potential conflicts compared to other time proximity measures, such as Time to Collision. Based on the results, the nudge did not show any strong evidence for reducing the speeds or safety criticality at the T-Intersection. So, it cannot be implemented as a traffic calming measure at the T-intersection without further research or modifications. So, this research also suggests key improvements with the lane marking nudge, and some crucial changes have to be implemented to avoid these kinds of unexpected outcomes in future. So, an elaborate discussion is made on what could be the possible changes with the implementation of the nudge for further investigations. Few intervention functions from the MINDSPACE framework and improvements from the behavioural change wheel have to be considered in the future researches with nudges.

With the increasing popularity of active modes (mainly pedestrians and bicycles), the spaces shared amongst these modes are also rising. Such spaces are often referred to as shared spaces and can often be seen in public areas near train stations, shopping streets and educational institutions. Such spaces are said to enhance safety and resolve spatial limitations of the space while the users are seen to exhibit interesting and complex behaviours as they freely interact with different modes approaching from various directions. This creates a need to collect data and understand the behaviour of people within such spaces.
Many studies focusing on shared space interactions are limited by the current methods of data collection and data extraction. Other studies on people movement also face similar issues. Current data extraction approaches using cameras include repetitive and labour-intensive tasks which makes them costly and inefficient. Thus, this study focuses on automating the data extraction approach to obtain the ground-plane trajectories of people using the data recorded from a 3D-stereo vision camera. The data processing framework was divided into three main stages, (i) agent detection, (ii) ground-plane representation and (iii) agent tracking. The agent detection uses a neural-network-based detection model to detect people on the visual video which is then paired with the depth data to represent people on the ground plane. Each person is represented as a single point on the ground plane for every frame of the video. These points were then inputted into a tracking model to provides trajectories of people on the ground plane. Overall, this research integrates the recent state-of-the-art technologies into a single framework to automate the data extraction process and tests this framework in a real-world setting (behind the Amsterdam central station’s shared space area). For each stage, the advantages, challenge and recommendation for further improvements have been made. By automating the data processing of real-world datasets (including pedestrians and cyclists), This study reduces the cost and provides an easy way to collect and process data on real-world movements of pedestrians and cyclists. This will encourage urban planners to better understand people’s movement within their spaces and facilitate data-driven design approaches in the future.

Using social media data, such as Twitter and Instagram, I identify relevant information, develop data models, estimate and analyse crowds’ characteristics in city events, including demographic and city-role composition, Spatial-temporal distribution, sentiment estimation, Points of Interest preferences, word use, crowd size and density estimation, which help crowd managers make better decisions.

The increase of ship traffic flow, densities, ship size, and the uncertainty from technological advancement raise issues in traffic safety and efficiency. In order to tackle the issue, currently, a simulation model is widely used by various users as the port authority and bridge team and for research and development team. Since the issues are varied for each modeling user, the modeling purposes are also different among the users. Therefore, this research aimed to find the insight into modeling paradigms in simulating the vessel dynamic kinetic information (position, speed, course, and heading) and the encountering (overtaking, head-on, and crossing). A requirement of both aspects for each modeling purposes is set based on the simulation output needed. The insight is gained through comparison of models of the dynamic kinetic information and the encounters in six paradigms. The paradigms are Cellular Automata (CA), Generic Rule-Based (GRB), Specific Rule-Based Model (SRB), Artificial Potential Field (APF), Optimal Control (OC), and System Dynamics (SD). This research also provides an extension of the model by Shu et al. (2015a, 2015b, 2018) with OC paradigm to serve as the safety assessment for the port authority.

This thesis covers the research of a new methodology that is able to create crowd management measures for hubs that are under (re)construction where business is performed as usual. The methodology contains the steps required to perform a case analysis and use the information gathered to create and deliver practicle, feasible and efficient crowd management measures. This report covers the results of: a literature study, feedback by unstructured interviews, defined methodology based on the principles of product design, case study results of the methodology application performed at Rotterdam The Hague Airport and, assessment of the created methodology and delivered crowd management measures.