Effect of surface roughness on cyclists’ handlebar controllability: an insight into bicycling safety

Recently, great effort has been made to increase bicycle ridership, however the high vulnerability of cyclists to road accidents has been a big deterrent preventing citizens from cycling. Among the causes of bicycle accidents, the loss of control due to inadequate handlebar control is a particularly common one. So, investigation of handlebar controllability (HC) is an important part in finding ways to deal with this type of accident. In this study, HC was examined considering the effect of pavement roughness level and the interaction effects of Age and Gender. The results showed that cyclist’s HC was negatively affected by pavement roughness level. The examination of the interaction effect of cyclists’ age on the correlation between HC and pavement roughness level indicated that elderly cyclists generally suffer more from the effect of pavement roughness on their HC, compared to younger ones. Especially, as they get older, the effect of pavement roughness on their HC even becomes greater. The interaction effect of Gender was found not to be significant. The results of this study could help in proposing countermeasures to deal with accidents resulting from loss of control and it may also serve as a basis for further studies on the potential field of HC.