Ongoing Experiments

Test site 1 – De Leeghwaterstraat, TU Delft Campus

Description Test site:

De Leeghwaterstraat is a so-called “fietsstraat”, or “bicycle street” in English, where cars and cyclists are using the same road. However, in contrast with normal roads, the cars are actually guests instead of the cyclists.  Although there already quite a few of these “bicycle streets” have been built in the past couple of years, not much is known about the behaviour of people that use these roads. Therefore, the RADD has placed a permanent testing system at the Leeghwaterstraat, in order to analyse the cyclists and motorists that use it.

The RADD will look deeper into the behaviour of road users with the help of the Leeghwaterstraat: how do cyclists react to each other, and how does this change when cars are added to the picture? And what happens when these cars are driving autonomously? These are just a few of the questions the living lab at the Leeghwaterstraat will be examining.

Experiments:

• The sensors at the Leeghwaterstraat will be activated between the 5th of July 2019. In this time period, we will collect cyclist trajectories, consisting of the positions of cyclists passing the Leeghwaterstraat over time. No personal data will be acquired.

The trajectories will be used to get insights into cycling behaviour in so-called Fietsstraten, which are areas where cyclists are the main users and cars have to give priority to cyclists. In particular, we will investigate the behaviour of interacting cyclists, with either cars or other cyclists. At the intersections, we will see how priority is given and on the Leeghwaterstraat itself, we will investigate when cyclists will evade and how their speeds will be adjusted during overtaking or passing. The trajectories will be used to calibrate a new simulation model developed by visiting professor Samer Hamdar (George Washington University).

For further information, please contact info@raddelft.nl.

 

Test site 2 – The Green Village

Description Test site:

Right next to the sports fields of Delft university of Technology lies a piece of land, surrounded by both water and parking lots. It may look like a regular part of the campus, but there is more to it than meets the eye: This piece of land is The Green Village, an experimental real-life testing facility for sustainable innovations. Here, serval innovative and sustainable technologies are being tested, in order to accelerate sustainable innovation.  Therefore, the municipality of Delft has provided The Green Village with a unique position, permitting a looser interpretation when it comes to regulations, which results into experiments being executed faster and easier.

Most of the experiments of the RADD are currently being performed at The Green Village. Because of the municipality permitting a looser interpretation of some of the regulations, (semi)-autonomous vehicles are cleared much faster for usage in experiments.

Experiments:

• System Tests Prius: Frank Everdij, a scientific software developer at the faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering at Delft university of Technology, is currently performing several tests regarding the systems of the Prius owned by the RADD.