Analysis of the Measurements of Cycle Path Surface Quality as Collected by Three Different Technologies

Surface quality of bike paths plays an important role in the decision whether people are using the bicycle or not. Within a test with three different measurement technologies (FPP, Comfortbike, Drivenby) the surface quality of five different road sections with different road surfaces in the Province of Antwerp (Belgium) was measured. From these measurements each measurement technology calculated an average value all 12.5 meter. Every road section has been measured twice by each technology. Within this paper we describe the experiment and analyze the reliability of the measurements. Further, we visualize the measurements in two different ways. One time we visualize the average values in sequence one after the other. Then, we visualize them by using the GPS coordinates that are stored with each value. We investigate which presentation form leads to more similar graphs. Regarding the reliability of the graphs the FPP and the bike from Drivenby results in similar courses after repeating the measurements. For the Comfortbike similarity could be found in the distribution of the measurements. We could show that generally it leads to more similar graphs when the measurements are plotted depending on the stored GPS coordinates instead of plotting them in sequence one after the other.