The Automobile Club of Portugal (ACP) presented the results of a study assessing the safety of Braga’s cycling infrastructure, carried out using the CycleRAP methodology, an international reference tool developed by the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) to assess the risk of infrastructures intended for active mobility.
Although Braga has a cycling network of only 22.16 kilometres, the study concludes that 42.9% of the routes analyzed present high or extreme risk levels for cyclists, with only 7.89% classified as low risk.
The results reveal that collisions between vehicles and bicycles constitute one of the main concerns, with about 38% of the network showing high or extreme risk levels for this type of conflict. The risk of collision between cyclists was found to be reduced in nearly all of the analyzed routes.
Among the identified high-risk factors are cycling on roads shared with automobiles, the reduced lateral separation between bicycles and motor traffic, and, in the historic centre, the presence of pavement on the sidewalk, which significantly increases the risk of falls in rainy conditions. The high pedestrian usage of these areas also requires solutions that reconcile bicycle circulation with the preservation of urban space and pedestrian safety.
In addition to the diagnosis, the study simulated different improvement scenarios at several critical points across the city, demonstrating that infrastructure interventions could significantly reduce risk levels in several analyzed segments.
For the ACP, this assessment constitutes an objective decision-support tool, allowing the identification of intervention priorities, quantifying the expected impact of the proposed solutions, and contributing to a phased and safer implementation of Braga’s planned cycling network.
The CycleRAP methodology, already used in several countries, currently constitutes one of the main international references for evaluating the safety of active mobility, enabling the comparison of infrastructures through uniform criteria and supporting evidence-based public policies.
The study, which receives support from the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), aligns with the ACP’s mission to promote safer, more sustainable and accessible mobility for all road users.
The study was developed by Lane Patrol, a Portuguese company specializing in digitization and evaluation of road infrastructures and active mobility, responsible for applying the CycleRAP methodology in Portugal. The assessment was based on the collection of georeferenced images, automatically captured every 10 metres through a mobile application installed on a bicycle.
Subsequently, the images were analyzed using artificial intelligence and technical validation, enabling the assessment of more than 50 infrastructure characteristics, from traffic separation to pavement quality, signage, intersections or visibility. The model calculates the risk level for four types of accidents (vehicle-bicycle collisions, bicycle-bicycle collisions, bicycle-pedestrian collisions, and isolated falls) and identifies priority improvement measures.
