Ministry of Transport and Public Works

Evaluation of the Delft Bicycle Network Plan

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SET-UP OF THE EVALUATION STUDY

The objectives of the investigations, initiated by the Central Gouvernement (Ministry of Transport and Public Works), are:

• to determine the effectiveness of the bicycle network scheme with respect to the encouragement of the bicycle use and the improvement of the comfort and safety of bicycle trips;
• to test the underlying traffic-related hypotheses of the scheme;
• to measure the changes in travel behaviour of cyclists and non-cyclists induced by the plan in order to gain an understanding of this behaviour that is generally applicable in planning.

The evaluation study consist of a main study dealing with the entire bicycle network plan and a number of project evaluations. The latter monitor the effects of some large and expensive infrastructural projects that were built. Examples are the Plantage Bridge and the Station Tunnel. This summary report confines itself to the main study.

The evaluation study has been designed as a before-and-after study with a study area and a control area. The before- study was carried out in September and October 1962 prior to the implementation of the plan. The after-study took place in September and October 1985 after a large part of the improvements were carried out.

Districts 13 and 14 (North-West Delft) were elected as the study area, where all planned improvements were made within the study period. District Wippolder is the control area, where no improvements were made. In addition to the study area that was monitored by almost ail investigations, some of these also deal with the Tanthof district, since some special facilities were built to improve the connection of the new residential area to the town centre. Figure 1 shows the three subareas.

The next chapter describes the design and results of the various evaluation parts which make up the main study. Subsequently, the findings are integrated into coherent answers to the policy questions mentioned above.

Figure 1: The city of Delft and three sub-areas.