Meeting

APBP Webinar - Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress 2.0; Revisions based on Global, Cross-Disciplinary Expert Consensus

Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) provides an important foundation for assessing how different bicycling environments impact different types of cyclists. It is a useful, widely adopted tool, but it has not been comprehensively validated or refined, leaving important gaps in how it reflects the needs of low-stress users. 

This study advances a revised LTS framework through a consensus-building approach with 19 international experts in planning, engineering, psychology, and human-centered design. Panelists were selected for their expertise in low-stress cycling, with deliberate attention to balancing gender, geography and disciplinary focus.  

The project focuses on revising three components: 

1. Rubrics for LTS 1 and 2, including user group definitions and population shares; 
2. The environmental and facility factors considered; and 
3. Thresholds for stress ratings. 

Findings highlight three core insights. First, demographic categories such as “mainstream adult cyclist” are too heterogeneous to be meaningful; LTS classifications should instead reflect individual physical, cognitive, and psychological differences, with children as the only relatively uniform group. Second, defining lower-stress thresholds (LTS 1 and 2) requires incorporating more complex bicycling environments. Third, current LTS methodologies are less robust than those of high-cycling countries and do not fully align with what this panel identified as valid.

Presenters:

• Susan Loftus (Principal, Loftus Planning and Design)
• Camilla Dartnell (Senior Planner and Engineer, Kittelson & Associates, Inc.)