Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress 2.0; Revisions based on Global, Cross-Disciplinary Expert Consensus 

December 16, 2026 at 3:00 pm ET

Presenters: 

Bicycle Level of Traffic Stress (LTS) provides an important foundation for assessing how different bicycling environments impact different types of cyclists. It is a useful, widely adopted tool, but it has not been comprehensively validated or refined, leaving important gaps in how it reflects the needs of low-stress users. This study advances a revised LTS framework through a consensus-building approach with 19 international experts in planning, engineering, psychology, and human-centered design. Panelists were selected for their expertise in low-stress cycling, with deliberate attention to balancing gender, geography and disciplinary focus. The project focuses on revising three components: (1) rubrics for LTS 1 and 2, including user group definitions and population shares; (2) the environmental and facility factors considered; and (3) thresholds for stress ratings. Findings highlight three core insights. First, demographic categories such as “mainstream adult cyclist” are too heterogeneous to be meaningful; LTS classifications should instead reflect individual physical, cognitive, and psychological differences, with children as the only relatively uniform group. Second, defining lower-stress thresholds (LTS 1 and 2) requires incorporating more complex bicycling environments. Third, current LTS methodologies are less robust than those of high cycling countries and do not fully align with what this panel identified as valid.