Improving Pedestrian Safety at Unsignalized Crossings (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 32-42
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The research team believed that this combination of behavioral and operational data analysis provided the best insight into the effectiveness of pedestrian crossing treatments. Table 15 summarizes the MOEs along with the method of calculation or the categories used to classify them.
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Motorist compliance Percent of motorists yielding or stopping for pedestrians Number of cars that stopped for (or yielded to) the staged pedestrian divided by the number of cars that should have stopped Table 15.
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A video recording was made of the crossing to permit review and data reduction after the actual crossing event occurred. It was necessary to observe actual pedestrian behavior (rather than simply using staged pedestrians)
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Staged pedestrians were used in the belief that consistent presentation of a pedestrian intent to cross was critical for comparing motorist compliance results from different locations or areas of the country; in other words, pedestrian positioning, stance, and aggressiveness affect a motorist's decision to stop or yield at a pedestrian crossing. For example, motorists are less likely to stop or yield when pedestrians stand several feet behind the curb line (e.g., the pedestrian may appear as though they are waiting instead of intending to cross)
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• Motorists who did not stop were counted as not complying. Motorists who slowed down without passing through the crosswalk to permit the staged pedestrian to safely cross were considered yielding vehicles.
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■ This traffic control device is subject to requirements specified in the MUTCD. High-Visibility Signs and Markings Characteristics ■ High-visibility signs and markings are warning devices placed at or in advance of the pedestrian crossing.
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Observation Data Collection Approach Despite the advantages of video data collection, the use of only video data would have had some significant drawbacks. First, the amount of time necessary to pull all pedestrian and motorist characteristics from the video for each crossing would be immense.
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Figures 16 and 17 illustrate video records with insufficient resolution; the crossing pedestrians are circled for emphasis. Because of these limitations, it was decided that members of the research team should make personal visual observations on site during the intervals of video data collection.
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site characteristics were recorded by hand on a pre-printed data sheet and supplemented by a hand-drawn sketch of the geometric configuration of the site. The sketch contained key geometric dimensions of the study site, which were recorded by hand measurements, as shown in Figure 19.
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Summary The research used observational studies of motorist and pedestrian behavior to evaluate the effectiveness of pedestrian crossing treatments at 42 sites in seven states. Several measures of effectiveness were used as surrogates for safety performance, because the timing and duration of the study did not 41 A)
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permit the collection of before-and-after pedestrian crash data at several promising study sites. Several criteria were used to select the study sites, chief among them: presence of a marked crosswalk, pedestrian activity, proximity to transit stops, and high-volume, high-speed streets.
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