Pedestrians’ Crossing Dilemma during the First Seconds of the Red-Light Phase (original) (raw)

Analysis of Pedestrian Road Crossing Behaviour in Urban Areas

International Journal of Operations Research and Information Systems, 2014

The objective of this research is the analysis of pedestrians behaviour along entire trips in urban road networks, with focus on their interaction with the traffic and the road environment while crossing roads. For this purpose, a special field survey was designed and carried out, which involved the recording of pedestrians road crossing behaviour along entire trips in real time by means of camera in motion at the centre of Athens, Greece. Based on the results of the field survey, an analysis of road crossing behaviour of pedestrians is presented, concerning characteristics of the trips, the pedestrians, the road environment and the traffic conditions. The results indicate that basic parameters of pedestrian trips (i.e. trip length, walking speed, number of crossings) can be described by appropriate probability distributions. They also reveal a tendency of pedestrians to cross either in the beginning or in the end of the trip, an increased probability of crossing at signalized junct...

Pedestrian Crossing Behaviour in Signalized Crossings in Middle Size Cities in Greece

2012

Pedestrian road safety is a key point of the transport road safety policy in urban areas. Pedestrians are vulnerable road users and despite their limited representation in traffic events, pedestrian involved injuries and fatalities are overrepresented in traffic collisions. This paper presents the findings from the examination of the pedestrian crossing behaviour in signalized crosswalks. The study took place in the city of Volos, Greece, in peak traffic hours, during the summer of the year 2010. The target of the study was to count the pedestrian crossing time and velocity for each crosswalk. Furthermore, the target was to identify the illegal pedestrian crossing with red traffic light, criticize their behaviour and propose remedial actions.

(Print) Editors: Pedestrian Crossing Behaviour in Signalized Crossings in Middle Size Cities in Greece

1 ABSTRACT Pedestrian road safety is a key point of the transport road safety policy in urban areas. Pedestrians are vulnerable road users and despite their limited representation in traffic events, pedestrian involved injuries and fatalities are overrepresented in traffic collisions. This paper presents the findings from the examination of the pedestrian crossing behaviour in signalized crosswalks. The study took place in the city of Volos, Greece, in peak traffic hours, during the summer of the year 2010. The target of the study was to count the pedestrian crossing time and velocity for each crosswalk. Furthermore, the target was to identify the illegal pedestrian crossing with red traffic light, criticize their behaviour and propose remedial actions. More than 1300 pedestrians were recorded using a video camera in twelve signalized crossings located in the center of the city, across main arterials. The pedestrians were categorized according to their sex in men and women and their...

Pedestrian Road Crossing Behavior Under Mixed Traffic Conditions: A Comparative Study of an Intersection Before and After Implementing Control Measures

Transportation in Developing Economies, 2016

Traffic accidents involving pedestrians have become a major safety problem in most of the developing countries like India due to rapid urbanization, increase in vehicular growth and lack of adherence to traffic regulations by both drivers and pedestrians. The existing roads design does not provide adequate facilities for pedestrians and hence, there exists a constant conflict between the pedestrians and the vehicles in sharing the limited space available on a road. At intersections, pedestrian crossing behavior is even more complex since the vehicles have very little response time to control the vehicles, particularly in urban areas. All these issues are pointing towards the research work required for studying the road crossing behavior of pedestrians at urban intersections. The main motivation of this study is to investigate the changes in pedestrian road crossing behavior of an intersection under mixed traffic conditions before and after signal installation. For this purpose, traffic and pedestrian data were collected from an intersection located in Mangalore city. Different parameters like age, gender, crossing patterns, crossing times, waiting times and crossing speeds of pedestrians, speed and types of vehicles and vehicular flows were extracted from the videos. The study analysis shows that majority of the pedestrians chooses one-step crossing after signal installation since they get sufficient gap to cross the road during the red phase of the signal provided for vehicles. The waiting times of the pedestrians were increased after installation of the signal since pedestrians have to wait for gaps until the vehicles get dissipated during the green phase. The 15th percentile crossing speed of pedestrians for both the scenarios were lesser than the crossing speed (1.2 m/s) used in pedestrian facility design as per Indian Road Congress (IRC 103). Critical gap of pedestrians has reduced marginally due to the decrease in crossing speeds of pedestrians after installation of the signal. A model was developed considering pedestrian gap size as the dependent variable and pedestrian and traffic characteristics as the independent variables using multiple linear regression (MLR) technique. A total of 468 and 333 accepted gaps of pedestrians were used for modeling the before and after scenarios, respectively. It was found that pedestrian jaywalking behavior is reduced after installation of the signal. The study concludes that after signal installation the factors such as traffic volume, average speed of vehicles and age-group play a predominant role in estimating the pedestrian gap acceptance. This study will be useful for understanding the complex pedestrian road crossing behavior at intersections under mixed traffic conditions. The findings of this paper have great implications for designing pedestrian facilities and also, for devising traffic management measures for pedestrian safety.

Behavioral Observations of Crossing Pedestrians at Urban Signalized Intersections

Jurnal Teknologi, 2016

Analyses of pedestrian accident indicate that crossing behavior is one of the factors contributing to the high risk of accident. Understanding the pedestrian crossing behavior have been widely studied around the world, as the behavior of this vulnerable group are random and inconsistent. Thus, this study observed the crossing behavior of pedestrians at urban signalized intersections in Malaysia. The crossing behavior of 239 pedestrians was observed and videotaped at two signalized intersections in Kuala Lumpur. Data on crossing behaviors were extracted and coded for 10 behavioral categories of relevant behavior. The behavioral differences among gender were also examined. The results show that most of the pedestrian observed neglect to press the call button before crossing, which consequence of many illegal crossing. Different crossing paths were also observed for the three crossing styles at signalized intersections.

Pedestrians' Crossing Behaviors and Crossing Preferences: A Field Study

Transactions on Transport Sciences, 2022

Pedestrians are one of the most vulnerable road user groups in traffic and face many risky situations in traffic, especially when pedestrians cross the street, where a pedestrians-vehicle interaction or conflict is most likely. Different from the previous studies on pedestrian behavior, the current study targeted exploring pedestrian behavior and safety at a specific street in Ankara-Tunalı Hilmi Street Turkey employing two different data collection methods. Specifically, the current study aimed to understand the behaviors, perceptions, and crossing preferences of pedestrians in the study area. In addition to the above, it aimed to identify situations that create safety concerns for pedestrians in the area and offer area-specific countermeasures addressing these concerns. For this purpose, an online survey study and an observational study were conducted. The results of the survey based on investigations of the crossing preferences of 96 pedestrians revealed an understanding of the participants' motivation when crossing the street, their attitudes toward traffic rules, and their safety perceptions about the area. Additionally, it targeted to understand the situations that negatively affect road safety in the area for pedestrians. According to the survey respondents, the study area was unsafe for pedestrians and the biggest problem in terms of pedestrian safety is vehicle traffic and parking. The observation study presented significant differences in crosswalk use, compliance with the signal between pedestrians who cross alone or in a pair and those who cross in a group. People who cross the street as a group use crosswalk and comply with the traffic signal more than people crossing alone or in a pair. In addition, considering the illegal crossing rate, it can be said that jaywalkers-people who do not use crosswalk-are the majority in the study area. As a result, the current study helps to arrange crossing facilities according to pedestrian preference because the proper design of facilities contributes to pedestrian safety and encourages walking without sacrificing safety and comfort. Accordingly, reducing vehicle traffic, increasing and arranging parking areas, and increasing number of pedestrian facilities are suggested to increase pedestrian safety in the area.

Pedestrian Risk Perception InSignalized Street Crossings

WIT Transactions on State-of-the-art in Science and Engineering, 2013

This paper examines the pedestrian perception of risk and behaviour in signalized street crossings with a flashing green beacon, while, simultaneously, the cars turn right or left with a flashing orange beacon. The pedestrians have right of way in situations like that. However, it is not always implemented by the drivers. As a result, the risk of the pedestrian crossing is raised, as they are forced to cross the street even in the red signalized phase. This study took place in the Greek city of Volos in December 2008. 2024 pedestrians were examined with the use of a video camera in two signalized intersections in the center of the city. During the elaboration of the data, the pedestrians were separated by sex, age and, while crossing the street, whether they were alone or in a group. The study presents the pedestrian behaviour and perception of risk as they wait to cross the street, either on the sidewalk or in the street and the choice of crossing the street either with a green or red light. It also, examines the cases where the drivers stopped to give right of way to the pedestrians.

Investigating Drivers’ Behaviour at Non-Signalised Pedestrian Crossings

2007

Pedestrian safety is one of the most serious problems in Estonian traffic. Thus, every third person killed on the roads is a pedestrian. The main aim of this paper was to find which factors could affect drivers’ attitude to give way to pedestrians at non-signalized crossings. Data gathered indicates that the main factor influencing drivers' willingness to give way at non-signalized urban crossings was motor vehicle traffic volume. The second part of the study involves drivers speed choice at pedestrian crossings. The situation is especially critical at the crossings with speed limit of 70 km/h. On these sites an average speed is dangerously high at the whole vicinity of zebra crossing and does not allow breaking safely when driver occurs the pedestrian waiting at the roadside.

Evaluation of human behaviour at pedestrian crossings

2015 6th IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications (CogInfoCom), 2015

Road traffic crashes result from a combination of factors related to the road layout, the vehicles, the road users and the way they interact. First the main causes of pedestrian fatalities and the safety effects of road measures (traffic lights, roundabouts and refuge islands) at pedestrian crossings before and after implementation were investigated. The results indicate that there is a strong evidence for the positive effect of these measures especially on the number of the pedestrian related accidents. In the next phase a site survey was conducted in order to estimate the irregular crossing manoeuvres of car drivers and pedestrians at designated pedestrian crossings. Having analysed the irregular movements according to the type of crossing it was found, that car drivers behave the most irregularly at crossings without a refuge island. Crossings equipped with flashing yellow lights, refuge islands and traffic lights require a much more appropriate behaviour from car drivers. In the next phase of the research the waiting time of pedestrians and the delay of vehicle drivers again at pedestrian crossings were surveyed. Our results suggest that there is a need for a strong contribution of the human and the engineering fields to obtain an even more positive change in the safety of vulnerable road users.

The Impact of Uncertainty on Pedestrians’ Decision to Start Roadway Crossing during the Clearance Phase

Complexity, 2021

Clearance phase at signalized crosswalks is an important parameter of pedestrians’ safety because it helps them to complete the crossing before the green signal for vehicles. However, there is the issue of pedestrian decision as to whether to cross if they arrive at the crosswalk during the clearance phase, which represents a violation in many countries. Due to the proof that pedestrian violations multiply the risk of traffic accidents, in this study, the tendency of pedestrians to commit violations during the clearance time has been researched. With the aim of proposing the design of the pedestrian traffic lights, which could decrease the frequency of pedestrian violations, the comparison of pedestrians behaviour at crosswalks with and without a countdown timer during the clearance time was made, based on the data collected in the video recording. Chi square independency test showed that there is a statistically significant difference in the behaviour of pedestrians during the clea...