Abstract

The growing number of people commuting and making trips by bicycle and the associated health and environmental benefits of this trend has captured the attention of transportation engineers and planners in recent years. However, a review of the current literature reveals a limited understanding of travel behavior of bicyclists, in particular bicyclists’ route choice behavior. This study investigates factors influencing bicyclists’ route choice and examines their willingness to deviate from the shortest route. Intercept surveying techniques were coupled with a self-administered web-based surveying tool to collect mapped routes of bicyclists. The data were used to (1) perform multinomial logit (MNL) model estimations and (2) evaluate deviation ratios. The MNL model estimations suggested that factors such as exposure to vehicle traffic, number of signalized intersections, and overall safety were statistically significant with coefficient signs as expected. Travel time was found to be marginally significant with a coefficient sign as expected. The deviation ratio analysis found that in general bicyclists were willing to deviate 27% (1.27); persons in the 45 to 54 years of age category had the highest deviation ratio (1.45); males and females had the same deviation ratio (1.27); “very confident” bicyclists were willing to deviate 12% farther than “fairly confident” bicyclists; persons traveling more than 9 miles tended to have a higher deviation ratio; and work-based-trips had an 18% higher deviation ratio than non-work-based trips. The combine results suggest that bicyclists are willing to deviate considerably for a safe route with low exposure to vehicle traffic and signalized intersections.