Bicycle Level of Service (BLOS) and Pedestrian Level of Service (PLOS) are two nationally-used measures of user comfort level as a function of a road corridor's geometry and traffic conditions. (Note that BLOS only measures on-road bicyclist comfort level.) The League of Illinois Bicyclists (LIB) created this calculator for the formulas, which were published by Sprinkle Consulting.
To calculate BLOS and PLOS of a particular roadway section, fill out the following for the typical cross-section. Results will pop up in a new window. Default values will be used for any fields left empty.
Some details on the BLOS input fields and their ranges are below. Further information and references on these measures are here.
The following provides further information on the BLOS and PLOS data inputs. See the references for more.
Roadway parameters will often change, and averaging could be done depending on the situation. In general, try to select a typical cross-section.
| Through lanes per direction: | Do not include medians, turn lanes, or continuous-left-turn lanes. |
| Width of outside travel lane, to outside stripe (in feet): | Width of right-most travel lane, excluding striped paved shoulders, bike lanes, and marked parking stalls. |
| Paved shoulder, bike lane, OR marked parking area, outside lane stripe to pavement edge (in feet): | Besides a paved shoulder or a bike lane, this width may also be marked (striped or hashed) parking stalls. For diagonal parking, use the perpendicular distance from the end of the parking stripes to the pavement edge. This calculator does not work when there are BOTH bike lanes and parking stalls - please see the reference for this case. |
| Bi-directional Traffic Volume (in ADT): | Daily average. Assumed Directional factor (0.565) and Peak Hour Factor (0.091) values are used in a conversion to peak 15-minute volume. |
| Percentage of heavy vehicles: | As defined in the Highway Capacity Manual. |
| Percentage of road segment with occupied on-street parking: | Exclude driveways. Either one side or an average of both sides may be considered at a time. |
| Percentage of segment with sidewalks: | Again, either one side or an average of both sides may be considered. |
| Sidewalk width (in feet): | If a sidepath bike trail exists instead of a sidewalk, use its width. |
| Sidewalk buffer/parkway width (in feet): | Average distance from pavement edge to sidewalk edge. Include any gutter pan width. |
| Buffer/parkway average tree spacing (in feet): | Between tree trunks. |
(Be aware of model use outside these ranges, particularly for paved shoulders much over 6 feet and more than a few percent heavy vehicles.)
(Be aware of model use outside these ranges, particularly for paved shoulders much over 6 feet and more than a few percent heavy vehicles.)
Go to LIB's Bike/Ped Level of Service Measures and Calculators page.
Go to LIB's home page.