Cyclists Are Faster Than Cars And Motorbikes in Cities and Towns, Study Says (forbes.com)

Smartphone data from riders and drivers schlepping meals for restaurant-to-home courier service Deliveroo shows that bicycles are faster than cars and motorized two-wheelers. From a news writeup, which sources its data from Deliveroo, a UK-headquartered food delivery company with more than 30,000 riders and drivers in 13 countries: That bicyclists are faster in cities will come as no surprise to bicycle advocates who have staged so-called "commuter races" for many years. However, these races -- organized to highlight the swiftness of urban cycling -- are usually staged in locations and at hours skewed towards bicycle riders. The Deliveroo stats are significant because they have been extracted from millions of actual journeys. And it's all thanks to Frank.

Frank is the name Deliveroo gives its routing algorithm (the name was chosen for the Danny DeVito character in the TV series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.") Delivering millions of simultaneous orders from thousands of restaurants to hungry consumers within 30 minutes using roving self-employed couriers equipped with smartphones is a complex vehicle routing problem: consumers want piping hot food; restaurants want meals picked up when cooked; riders -- paid per drop -- want multiple deliveries per hour, and Deliveroo needs to make money. The algorithm team employs data scientists with PhDs in computer vision, computer science, operations research, cognitive neuroscience, econometrics, machine learning, and physics.

Comments

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't respect traffick lights and stop signs.

Re: Of course

[e3m4n]

You must live somewhere with no weather changes. Its great you can make it work. I live in the Ohio valley. It took forever for it to stop snowing this year. It was toward the end of april when we got our first glipse of spring weather. Then May came with the typical April showers, only it didnt stop after May. Well into June/July we had week long rains, where there was maybe 1 or 2 days a week that it didnt rain. The heat peeked early, making june the first month of the year to reach mid 90s. October returned back to the rainy/cold and as of this morning it was 22F when I woke up. Tuesday will be our first snow of the year, and when I wake on Wednesday its supposed to be 13F.

It seems these articles are written in a vacuum. Whats worse is that city planners around here listened to these utopian ideas and deleted an entire lane of traffic to support a bike lane that is nearly never used because of cold, or rain, or icy/wet roads making the risk of getting slammed into by a car that lost control a very real possibility. Deleting a 3 lane road into 2 (that still lets people park on the curb turning it into 1 lane) has only made traffic even worse. The risk of injury is very real. I had a workout friend get cremed riding across a traffic bridge while training for a triathalon. The driver was composing an email and drifted to the right and clipped his bike, sending him head first into the pavement. It crushed the vertebrae in his neck. They need special sidewalks, not painted stripes on a road, in a location thats weather permitting. But least we will never experience drout.

Re:Jealous motorists

[Bert64]

Motorbikes do that too, but motorbikes follow the road rules...
The article claims bikes were faster than motorbikes, and the lack of following rules is about the only differentiator in london - motorbikes are allowed in cycle/bus lanes, and motorbikes can generally accelerate much faster than a bike.

The annoyance with bikes at intersections is that although they filter to the front, even if they do obey the lights (often being forced to by traffic flowing in other directions) they pull away very slowly and delay all the other traffic, often causing some traffic to be caught when the lights change again. Motorbikes are usually capable of accelerating sufficiently quickly that they get away ahead of all the other traffic and therefore don't cause any delays.

Re:In some situations yes this is true

[hey!]

Plus is saves on gym time. You're getting seven and a half hours of light exercise a week, and if you're a typical male you're burning about 4000 calories a week, which is equivalent to about a pound of fat; while you probably eat more to compensate, it makes it a lot less likely you'll gain weight than the people driving past you.

Seven and a half hours of light exercise is also well within the range that is optimal for cardiovascular health, and research shows that this volume of exercise improves brain performance in memory and executive function tasks. Research also shows that regular exercise works as well as medication and psychotherapy combined at treating depression.

Cyclists also develop more robust immune systems; taking up cycling cuts the number of sick days in half.

Re: Jealous motorists

[i.r.id10t]

Having been knocked unconscious and suffering a concussion from being hit by a bicyclist while I was walking I fully understand why they aren't supposed to use pedestrian walkways.