Cyclist safety around trams: A market survey

Tram systems present safety risks to cyclists, however only limited research has explored this topic, of which most has focused on crash and hospital data, and severe crash events. This paper presents the first known cyclist market survey focused specifically on the experience of cyclists related to safety around trams, including unreported incidents and those that did not result in hospital attendance. Findings suggest that track-skid incidents are more common than track-wedge incidents, in contrast to previous research that emphasizes track-wedging as a larger issue than skidding. This is may be explained by the differing outcomes, with track-wedging more likely to result in injury. This research is thus significant in identifying track skidding as a major risk concern, causing a majority of crashes, while also confirming that track wedging is the major severity concern. In the last five years, 21% of respondents were involved in at least one tram-track-related crash. This was less than the share of respondents involved in falls (50%), crashes relating to road defects (36%) or collisions with motor vehicles (29%). However, half of survey respondents (52%) reported cycling on roads with tram tracks for 0-20% of their cycling, which might suggest that tram track-related crash rates are high given that most inner-city cycling occurs on roads without tracks. Track-skidding was found to be associated with wet conditions. Those involved in at least one track-skid in the last five years where more likely to have been cycling more than 3 years, but involvement in track-wedging was more likely amongst those cycling > 10 years and aged < 45 years. Implications for research and practice are suggested.