Investigating factors affecting riders' behaviors of occupying motorized vehicle lanes on urban streets.

The violation activity of non-motorized vehicles riding in motorized vehicle lanes interferes roadway traffic serious, as it can not only seriously depreciate the efficiency of motorized vehicle traffic, but also raise possibility of triggering traffic accidents. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate intrinsic features of unlawful non-motorized vehicles' violation behaviors of riding on motorized vehicle lanes. The binary logistic regression model was proposed to find inherent reasons of triggering such misbehaviors. The misbehaviors of non-motorized vehicles (including regular bicycles, electric bicycles and human-powered tricycles) at seven sections, located at Hefei, China, were collected and studied. The experimental results indicate that male traffic participants exhibit higher rates of traffic violations than females, and rainy days shows higher misbehaviors than sunny and cloudy days. Another finding is that morning peak violation rate is higher than the evening peak and non-peak hours due to the fact people are in hurry for work. The traffic density of motorized vehicles and the traffic density of non-motorized vehicles strongly affect illegal occupancy behavior. The effect of dividing strip type and non-motorized vehicle type on lane illegal occupancy behavior are significant. We find that the average lane illegal occupancy rate of non-motorized vehicle is 36.1% which suggests that over one-third of non-motorized riders violate traffic rules. The findings of this study can help traffic authorities, road construction departments and traffic participants perform effective and efficient measurements to improve road traffic safety.