Growing role of walking and cycling and the associated risks

Increasing the role of active mobility, including walking and cycling, is one of the tools for developing sustainable urban transport systems as recommended by the EU. The article describes the trends in pedestrian and bicycle traffic in Poland and its share in urban modal split. It identifies and describes the main sources of risks to pedestrian and cycle safety. Recommendations are proposed on how to ensure that pedestrians and cyclists can use traffic safely.


Introduction
Tackling climate change is one of the biggest challenges for international cooperation [1].It is largely influenced by transport which represents a major and increasingly big source of greenhouse gas emissions [2].Urban traffic accounts for 40% of CO2 emissions and 70% of other road transport-related emissions [3].In a bid to tackle climate change the European Commission has set emission targets.They are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 by at least 60% compared to 1990 levels [4].As regards transport, the European Commission believes that the targets can be achieved through progress in technology and/or change in how the public use transport, i.e. by reducing car trips in favour of public transport and choosing active forms of mobility such as walking and cycling [5].If we could increase the share of walking and cycling in the modal split by reducing car trips, we could also reduce congestion which affects all of Poland's major cities and people's quality of life.Active forms of mobility are also good for those walking or cycling and they have an indirect positive effect on the health of everyone else [6].Apart from those health benefits, nonmotorised forms of transport also offer environmental, economic, social and spatial benefits.This is why many cities in the world and in Poland have policies designed to increase the share of active forms of mobility in how people travel [5].Because urban and rural walking and cycling differ, this article covers built-up areas only.It gives an overview of the trends and the changing role of pedestrian and cycle traffic in Poland's built-up areas between 2009 and 2016.As well as identifying the risks to pedestrians and cyclists, the article uses international experience and available cyclist and pedestrian accident data to discuss the relation between the safety of vulnerable road users and the volume of pedestrian and cycle traffic.

Trends in pedestrian and cycle traffic
Walking is the oldest form of transport.Today, walking is usually used for short trips.Up to 60% of trips up to 2 kilometres are made on foot and as many as 80% for trips up to 1 kilometre.Studies of transport behaviour conducted in Poland show that walking accounts for 10-29% (Table 1) of all urban trips.In some European cities such as Lyon (France), Oslo (Norway), Helsinki (Finland) and Valencia (Spain) walking has a share of more than 30% [6].The studies also established that cycle trips differ from city to city and range between 1% to 10% of all urban trips (Table ).As we can see in Table 2    The majority of cycle accidents: -occur in daylight and do not involve alcohol, -involve side crashes, followed by rear and head-on collisions, -involve cars, followed by lorries; -occur when cyclists or drivers fail to give way, when drivers overtake illegally and cyclists turn illegally.
Police statistics shows that drivers and cyclists take equal blame for accidents.The most frequent cause is wrong behaviour by one of the road users.Drivers will usually fail to give way, overtake and turn illegally, go too fast for the conditions, bypass illegally and do not   GAMBIT 2016

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The country's pedestrian and cyclist safety rates vary across the country and depend on the administrative area's characteristics.They also depend on the degree of urbanisation.Built-up and non-built-up areas have different pedestrian and cyclist safety rates [19].While the majority of pedestrian and cyclist accidents occur in built-up areas, the consequences of rural accidents are much more severe.In 2015 there was one pedestrian fatality in every third accident in a non-built-up area and one cyclist fatality in every fifth compared to one pedestrian fatality in every thirteenth accident in a built-up area and one cyclist fatality in every twentieth accident [20].
However, none of these rates give a realistic measure of cycling safety or directly show the risk of an accident when cycling or walking.The number of pedestrian and cyclist accidents which is the basis for calculating all rates, depends on a number of factors

Conclusions
The role of walking and cycling as part of urban transport services is growing.This is the result of efforts to promote cycling, foster public transport and limit car use.
Over the last five years Poland's pedestrian safety has improved.The number of pedestrian accidents dropped by nearly 24% and the number of killed went down by 26%.Despite that in Poland every third road fatality is a pedestrian compared to the EU's every fifth.This is the result of driver behaviour and condition of pedestrian facilities.Over the same period the number of cyclist accidents went up by 18.3 %, the number of casualties rising by nearly 17% and fatalities by 7%.Forecasts show that cyclist accidents will continue to increase.This is due to growing cycling traffic, driver and cyclist behaviour, the safety standards of cycle infrastructure and how cycle traffic is organised.
The road safety system today still fails to provide an effective way to protect pedestrians and cyclists from injury or death.While cities are building cycle infrastructure, it is not available outside them.The new infrastructure does not come with campaigns to promote safe behaviour mainly that of cyclists using road traffic.

Systemic solutions to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety
To address the challenges of growing cycle trips and the potential increase in cyclist accidents, actions are needed to reduce the impacts as much as possible.This should include a consistent and easy to use network of cycle routes.Building new cycle routes or designating cycle lanes is not enough because more needs to be done to adjust the infrastructure, organise cycle traffic and put up clear signage to mark the beginning and end of cycle routes.It is vital to educate and promote safe behaviour.Cyclists are not legally required to hold a driving license.While they are expected to know traffic regulations and follow them, practice shows that this is not always the case.
cycling has been growing annually whilst walking maintains a fairly constant share in the modal split in Polish cities. Analysis of the change in the modal split suggests that a large part of cyclists give up their daily trips by public transport.In the last seven years Gdansk's cycle traffic has grown by 4 percentage points whilst the share of public transport dropped by 6 percentage points [7,8].

Fig. 1 .3Fig. 2 .
Fig. 1.Sum of cyclists recorded between 2011-2016 by automatic traffic counters on 22 crosssections.Source: own work based on [14].The results of automatic and manual counts are consistent and show an upward trend in cyclists.In 2015 the number of cyclists dropped on the analysed cross-sections while cycling gained a higher share in the modal split.This could be a consequence of new cycling infrastructure projects leading to a more dispersed cycle traffic on the growing network of cycle routes.

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including traffic volume.Using statistics from US cities P.L. Jacobsen expressed the relation between the number of accidents and how big cycle traffic is using this formula [21]: Number of cyclist accidents = cycle traffic volume 0,4 (The share of cycling in Poland is still low.The authors of the Strategy for Transport and Mobility in Gdansk's Metropolitan Area studied the relation between the number of cyclist accidents and the low share of cycling in overall trips.The results show that cycling carries the highest risk [22].