Electric Bicycles’ Operational Characteristics with Mixed Traffic Flow: An Observational Study Based on the Conversion Factors in China

In developing countries, the ordinary pedal bicycles have been gradually replaced by the electric bicycles, which have different operational characteristics compared to the former. In order to allocate road resource reasonably and analyze operational characteristics of electric bicycles efficiently, the primary objective of this study was to develop a quantitative approach to calculate the conversion factors of electric bicycles, and investigate the relationships of flow-density-speed with mixed traffic flow. According to the traffic characteristics of motor vehicles and electric bicycles, the conversion factor models were introduced to convert the number of bicycles to passenger car unit (pcu). The conversion factor for electric bicycles in the road section was 0.64, which was the average of 0.71 (traditional methods), 0.64 (dynamic methods), and 0.58 (static methods). A case study was conducted to show the applicability of the proposed model with data collected from the city of Xi’an in China. The results of R-square values indicated the method was well validated and could be practically used for the analysis of electric bicycles’ operational characteristics with mixed traffic flow in China.