Eskişehir bicycle roads analysis and planning

Keywords: Bicycle; bicycle paths; bicycle routes; cycling; transportation planning; sustainable transportation, bicycle route survey. Cycling and cycling routes are used for many purposes in developed and developing countries and are considered as a means of transportation and a transportation system. National and international standards have been developed in order to ensure the safety of cyclists traveling on bicycle routes and to promote bicycle transport. Bicycle transportation has important benefits in health, environment, energy efficiency. In the determination of bicycle routes, especially transportation planning studies and surveys with bicycle users should be taken into consideration. It is also important to carry out the construction of bicycle routes in accordance with the geometric design criteria of the bicycle route on the specified routes. Eskişehir city is a kind o railway hub in Turkey and the city is one of the most liveable city because of the these characteristic. There is an increasing demand for bicycle routes in Eskişehir, which is also a university city. There are currently 65 km of cycling routes in Eskişehir. In this study, a study has been carried out on bicycle routes in Eskişehir city center which is planned to be constructed in addition to the existing bicycle routes. This study is based on the Eskişehir Transportation Master Plan (EUAP) completed in 2017 and the surveys conducted in 2019 on the use of bicycles in Eskişehir. In the 2017 Eskişehir Transportation Master Plan study, a four-stage transportation planning model was used. In the planning study, Eskişehir province was divided into 191 regions including internal and external zones. The trip amounts in each region were determined and then the journeys between each region were calculated. The transportation planning studies were carried out for the private vehicles and the public transportation separately. In the EUAP reports; the short, medium and long-term cycling routes were determined. In addition, in 2019, a survey was applied to the users of bicycle in Eskişehir on the condition of the existing bicycle routes and the requested bicycle routes. Consequently, some new bicycle routes were suggested to Eskişehir city on the base of Eskişehir Transportation Master Plan and the survey outputs.