Analysis of Pedestrian Crossing Behavior at Uncontrolled Intersections

Abstract

Increased vehicular population in second-tier urban areas and disobedience to the traffic laws by the road users (pedestrians and others) leads to a significant concern about the safety. This has become a very serious problem, unable to be controlled either by the enforcement or any means. In the present study, a city has been selected where the population is less than five lakhs but the substantial population of the vehicles and uncontrolled intersections are formed by adopting poor technical methods in town development. Eleven uncontrolled intersections were selected along the major arterial roads. The method adopted for data collection is a videography survey. The data collected were pedestrian volume, traffic volume, and the approaching speed of the vehicles. Also, the pedestrian characteristics were extracted to analyze the crossing behavior, gap acceptance, and critical gap. From the analysis, it is concluded that road geometry and traffic control device plays a significant role in pedestrian safety. In this analysis, while selecting the intersections, its formation, layout, and geometry are analyzed. Pedestrian crossing speed (15th percentile) was compared to the standard value 1.2 m/s and its relation between road geometry, pedestrian traffic control devices or signs, pedestrian characteristics, and traffic volume are analyzed. It is concluded that the 15th percentile speed of pedestrians did not meet the standard value 1.2 m/s in most of the intersections and male pedestrians crossing speed (1.39 m/s) is found to be higher when compared to crossing speed of female pedestrians (0.76 m/s). The critical gap is lesser for two-wheelers when compared to other classes of vehicles indicating that the size of the vehicles has a significant influence on gap acceptance, pedestrian crossing behavior, and critical gap.