Evaluating quality of service for bicyclists on rural highways: insights from a comprehensive user survey and mixed-logit analysis

Abstract Cycling on rural highways presents comfort and safety concerns due to the large speed differentials between bicyclists and automobiles. A shortcoming of the current operational methods for rural highways is the limited consideration of quality of service for non-motorized users. This research aims to determine which variables are most relevant to bicyclists cycling (or not) on rural highways and their operational cycling preferences. An online survey collected 982 responses from individuals who cycle on rural highways in the United States. Eight choice tasks were presented with six factors: pavement quality, automobile traffic level, posted speed limit, roadside design, context class, and grade. These factors were obtained from a preliminary survey targeting highway analysis and design practitioners. The results of a mixed-logit model analysis suggest that the presence of a shoulder and its width are the most critical factors to a cyclist’s perceived quality of service on a rural highway. We found that the difference between rural-town and suburban contexts was minor compared to rural contexts. The results demonstrate how cyclist types influence their overall willingness to cycle and their preferences for scenario-specific attributes. This opens the discussion to include different sets of thresholds to assess service levels as a function of cyclist type, following the level of traffic stress approach, and separate perception models by cyclist type. These results should inform recommendations for future research on improving existing evaluations related to bicycling on rural highways.