Identificación de sitios potenciales para la implementación de zonas de parqueo de bicicletas en el área urbana de la ciudad de Loja, Ecuador.

Abstract

Due to the growing interest in the use of bicycles as an alternative means of transportation in recent times, it is essential to provide criteria for the correct investment in cycling infrastructure. In this sense, this research proposes, based on the categorization of the threshold of energy consumption that a cyclist spends to move from one place to another, to establish strategic points for the implementation of bicycle parking in the urban area of Loja. For the identification of these points it was necessary to generate a friction surface based on the energy that, potentially, a bicycle user could consume to move through the streets of the city, after which it was calculated, based on a cumulative cost algorithm, the points from which exhaustion begins to be felt. With these approximate locations, potential stops were defined based on infrastructure and concurrence to key sites. Among the main results obtained was the identification of 23 potential stops, distributed in 3 rings where bicycle parking can be established. In conclusion, a total length of 739.2 km of roads was identified, the distance in which a cyclist can consume 50 kj is 5.3 km. Indeed, the definition of these 23 potential stops and the identification of 19 points of interest around these potential stops, contributes to the implementation of bicycle parking, taking into account that these should connect destinations of collective interest, such as: employment sites, schools, shopping areas, recreational areas and transit stops.