In the frame of the pre-normative research project “SuChar-BiLan”, partially financed by the Belgian national standards body (NBN) and the Belgian Federal Public Service (FPS) for Economy, the Belgian Road Research Centre (BRRC) investigates various parameters that are important for safety, comfort and energy consumption of users of bicycle lanes: longitudinal and transverse evenness, macro- and mega-texture, skid resistance and rolling resistance. The results of the project will be transmitted to working group CEN/TC227/WG5 of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) that has been developing and reviewing the standards for surface characteristics for roads and that soon will cover bicycle lanes as well. After a literature study on existing technologies that have potential for measuring surface characteristics of bicycle lanes, three surveys were designed and respectively addressed to technology providers, bicycle lane owners and managers, and bicycle lane users. This contribution reports the analysed results of the surveys. Then a measurement and appraisal campaign was set up. The assessments by the users and the measurement data were compared to determine which surface characteristics influence users’ perceptions. This contribution also reports on the first results of the campaign.