Sidewalk-based bicycle path network design incorporating equity in cycling time

Many cities find it difficult to claim enough land to build dedicated bicycle lanes. In response, this study proposes a novel framework to design a bicycle path network based on the existing sidewalks where selected sidewalk links are converted into eligible bicycle paths. The output will be a subset of the sidewalk links chosen to be converted to eligible bicycle paths with minimum cost such that all origin–destination (O-D) pairs are connected with bicycle paths and cyclists from each O-D pair can enjoy similar degrees of equity. The equity defined here is that cyclists from each O-D pair will not need to travel excessively longer in time in the designed bicycle path network than in the original sidewalk network. A novel decomposition-based dynamic dimensional search is proposed to solve the problem. The numerical experiments of a university campus and Clementi town in Singapore have shown our algorithm with varying equity parameter choices can provide tangible inclusive bicycle path network designs and improve as many as 80% equity in certain O-D pairs with critical inequity issues.