Routing for safer rides: a space syntax approach to predict bicycle collisions in a Brazilian city

Abstract

In order to broaden the discussion on the safety of bicycle transport, this paper uses the analytical capacity of the spatial syntax applied to the recording of accidents involving cyclists in the city of Rolândia-PR, located in the Southern Region of Brazil. With the availability of 535 reports of trips made by bicycle mode, collected in the survey origin and destination of the city, a database was elaborated where each segment of the road received its numerical value from the loading of trips, and its corresponding values of choice and integration, generated in the Depthmap software. As a result, the relationship between the point of accident and the trip record by bicycle was refuted. In contrast, the angular values of choice and integration were sufficient to explain the occurrence of accidents involving cyclists in each segment of the municipal urban network, statistically proven through the generation of a generalized linear model. The contribution of this study focuses on the validity of using spatial syntax to predict safer routes, which is considered a theoretical-methodological approach that identifies priority routes for the implementation of specific infrastructure for bicycle transport.