Riding in traffic can be stressful. Low-stress routes make cycling more enjoyable for everyone.

Motor vehicle traffic is a leading cause of stress for cyclists. Avoiding or lowering that traffic-induced stress makes bike rides more enjoyable for everyone, though it will bring the biggest benefit to people who have less experience or confidence in cycling.

Our Cycling Guide mobile app is focused on enabling cyclists to get from their starting point to their destination using the best available low-stress, cycling-centric routes.

We started with research presented in a Mineta Transportation Institute paper, Low-Stress Bicycling and Network Connectivity. As the abstract notes,

“For a bicycling network to attract the widest possible segment of the population, its most fundamental attribute should be low-stress connectivity, that is, providing routes between people’s origins and destinations that do not require cyclists to use links that exceed their tolerance for traffic stress, and that do not involve an undue level of detour.”

Their Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) framework, which provides for four levels of traffic stress, was built upon by Bike Ottawa with their online maps. And we adapted the LTS framework for use in our Cycling Guide app. We use those four levels as the basis for processing OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to support creating the best available low-stress bike routes.

In 2009 Roger Geller proposed a new typology of cyclists. Based on years of experience and a variety of data, he identified four types of cyclists: Strong and Fearless, Enthused and Confident, Interested but Concerned, and No Way No How. Jennifer Dill and Nathan McNeil built upon Geller’s work in two studies in 2013 and 2016. In a survey of people in 50 major metropolitan areas in the US they found that 51% of the population fell into the “Interested but Concerned” category. These people are the primary, but not exclusive, target for Cycling Guide.

While we intend to get less-experienced cyclists riding their bikes more often, we’ve found that even experienced cyclists benefit from using the Cycling Guide app, as they discover paths and trails that they just didn’t know about. Again, lowering traffic-induced stress makes cycling more enjoyable for everyone.