DELFT: Dutch university researcher Holger Caesar heads out into the afternoon traffic on a bicycle like no other, equipped to collect data he believes may one day save lives.

His blue electric bike, kitted out with an array of laser sensors and scanners, speeds off among thousands of students pedalling home through the campus of the Delft University of Technology.

The campus of TU Delft is a warren of cycle paths — a perfect encapsulation of life in a country where bicycles outnumber people. As Caesar cycles through Delft’s busy streets, his bicycle sweeps up data on range, direction and elevation of both moving and stationary objects — including cyclists, pedestrains and cars.

The aim is to build a three-dimensional picture of its surroundings and a better undestanding of the way road users behave.

“We hope these datasets will have lots of applications in future,” he said, suggesting they could help cyclists avoid obstacles, build self-stabilising bicycles or teach autonomous vehicles how to avoid hitting two-wheeled travellers.

“For cars it’s relatively simple … They go left. They go right. They go straight on. But it’s very hard to predict how cyclists are going to behave,” Caesar said.

“You could, for instance, use the data to develop an application that alerts car drivers when a cyclist makes an unexpected move.”

The “Delft SenseBike” itself would be at home in a science fiction film, equipped as it is with LiDAR sensors at the front and back. LiDAR — “Light Detection And Ranging” technology — is commonly used in autonomous vehicles, which use the laser detection to create a three-dimensional image of their surroundings.

Published in Dawn, January 22th, 2025