Engineering Commons^™

Policy Brief: Evaluation Of The Safety Of Pedestrian Crossing Treatments In Small And Rural Communities, Parsa Pezeshknejad, Dana Rowangould, James Sullivan

University of Vermont Transportation Research Center

TRC Policy Brief: Rural areas often lack adequate pedestrian infrastructure, resulting in elevated safety risks for pedestrians. The combination of higher speed limits and reduced driver awareness amplifies the potential for pedestrian collisions when crossing the roadway.

This study addresses uncertainty about the effectiveness of rectangular rapid flashing beacons (RRFBs) and LED-embedded signs (LESs) as potential safety interventions. RRFBs and LESs are both pedestrian crossing treatments that allow pedestrians to activate lights to alert drivers of their intent to cross. RRFBs include horizontal LED lights mounted to the sign pole, while LESs include LEDs embedded in the edge of the …

Understanding Perceptions Of Vulnerable Roadway Users On Autonomous Vehicles, Md Tawhidur Rahman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Public perceptions have been playing an important role in the development of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology. Besides AV and non-AV users, the perceptions of vulnerable roadway users are critical, as AVs will become a part of multimodal transportation system. Pedestrians and bicyclists are among the vulnerable groups of roadway users, as they are relatively unprotected compared to the occupants of AVs or non-AVs. Although AV’s capability to monitor other vehicles has been documented in many studies, there are concerns about AV’s capability in monitoring pedestrians and bicyclists. The overarching goal of this dissertation is to investigate the perceptions of pedestrians …

Evaluating How The Quality Of Pedestrian Infrastructure Affects The Choice To Walk, Gregory Rowangould, Alexis Corning-Padilla

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18PPUNM02. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"While the benefits of walking are well understood, the physical design of sidewalks and their maintenance needs generally receive much less attention in both research and practice than the infrastructure used by other modes of transportation. As a result, we know comparatively little about how the design of sidewalks and quality of the overall pedestrian environment affect the decision to walk. In our study we conducted a household travel survey to collect data on walking frequency and attributes related to sidewalk quality …

Evaluating How The Quality Of Pedestrian Infrastructure Affects The Choice To Walk, Gregory Rowangould, Alexis Corning-Padilla

Publications

While the benefits of walking are well understood, the physical design of sidewalks and their maintenance needs generally receive much less attention in both research and practice than the infrastructure used by other modes of transportation. As a result, we know comparatively little about how the design of sidewalks and quality of the overall pedestrian environment affect the decision to walk. In our study we conducted a household travel survey to collect data on walking frequency and attributes related to sidewalk quality and the quality of the walking environment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We used summary statistics and statistical modeling …

Webinar: Rethinking Streets For Bikes: An Evidence Based Guide Of Bike-Friendly Street Retrofits, Marc Schlossberg, Roger Lindgren

TREC Webinar Series

There is a growing demand for better infrastructure and fewer barriers to biking and other forms of space-efficient micromobility. Tackling daily trips by bike is easier on the environment, healthier for users and non-users alike, uses precious urbanized public and private land more efficiently, costs taxpayers less to build and maintain infrastructure, and when routes are safe and comfortable, moving by bike is also fun! Complete Streets policies are being adopted across the country, and there is an active conversation around the safety imperative of a Complete Streets approach. Yet, local officials often need both design guidance and the …

Sustainable And Equitable Financing For Pedestrian Infrastructure Maintenance, Gregory Rowangould

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17PPUNM01. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"In many communities, pedestrian infrastructure is discontinuous, inaccessible to those with physical disabilities, and poorly maintained. Correcting these problems would be a first step in providing infrastructure to achieve the active travel and related transportation goals of many communities. One nearly universal challenge to maintaining sidewalks in a state of good repair and addressing environmental justice concerns is an adequate, sustainable, and equitable source of funding. Municipal governments across the country maintain and repair their streets and roadways; however, most require residents …

Sustainable And Equitable Financing For Pedestrian Infrastructure Maintenance, Gregory Rowangould

Publications

In many communities, pedestrian infrastructure is discontinuous, inaccessible to those with physical disabilities, and poorly maintained. Correcting these problems would be a first step in providing infrastructure to achieve the active travel and related transportation goals of many communities. One nearly universal challenge to maintaining sidewalks in a state of good repair and addressing environmental justice concerns is an adequate, sustainable, and equitable source of funding. Municipal governments across the country maintain and repair their streets and roadways; however, most require residents to maintain and repair public sidewalks adjacent to their property. These policies are difficult to enforce and may …

Safety Ramifications Of A Change In Pedestrian Crosswalk Law: A Case Study Of Oregon, Usa, Yue Ke, Konstantina Gkritza

Lyles School of Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Pedestrians are some of the most vulnerable road users as they are not protected by safety devices, and must also share the road with vehicles traveling at dangerous speeds, particularly during road crossings. In 2011, the state of Oregon changed their traffic laws to be more accommodating to pedestrians by giving right of way to pedestrians using a crosswalk, regardless if whether the crosswalk is marked or unmarked. This paper estimates a panel logit model to evaluate the efficacy of the law in preventing pedestrian fatalities. Pedestrian fatalities are shown to decrease over time, with smaller likelihood of a fatality …

Webinar: Land Use Mix And Pedestrian Travel Behavior: Advancements In Conceptualization And Measurement, Steven R. Gehrke

TREC Webinar Series

Smart growth policies have often emphasized the importance of land use mix as an intervention beholding of lasting urban planning and public health benefits. Past transportation-land use research has identified potential efficiency gains achieved by mixed-use neighborhoods and the subsequent shortening of trip lengths; whereas, public health research has accredited increased land use mixing as an effective policy for facilitating greater physical activity.

However, despite the celebrated transportation, land use, and health benefits of improved land use mixing and the extent of topical attention, no consensus has been reached regarding the conceptualization and measurement of this key smart growth principle …

Land Use And Active Travel: A Complex Relationship, Steven R. Gehrke

TREC Project Briefs

While it’s accepted that mixed-use development promotes active travel, researchers don’t have a consensus on exactly how land use determines people’s travel patterns.

Webinar: Improving Walkability At Signalized Intersections With Signal Control Strategies, Edward J. Smaglik, Sirisha Murthy Kothuri

TREC Webinar Series

The goal of signal timing at an intersection should be to maximize efficiency for all users. In many jurisdictions, however, traffic signals are timed mostly with the goal of reducing vehicular delay.

Other road users, such as pedestrians, deserve similar focus. In legacy transportation systems, pedestrians experience delays much in excess of those that would be deemed acceptable for a motor vehicle at the same location.

Excessive delay can lead to pedestrian frustration, non-compliance and ultimately decreased safety.

In the North American context, implementation of strategies to address pedestrian service varies greatly across jurisdictions, and there has been limited research …

Webinar: Development Of A Pedestrian Demand Estimation Tool, Kelly Clifton

TREC Webinar Series

Why model pedestrians?

A new predictive tool for estimating pedestrian demand has potential applications for improving walkability. By forecasting the number, location and characteristics of walking trips, this tool allows for policy-sensitive mode shifts away from automobile travel.

There is growing support to improve the quality of the walking environment and make investments to promote pedestrian travel. Despite this interest and need, current forecasting tools, particularly regional travel demand models, often fall short. To address this gap, Oregon Metro and NITC researcher Kelly Clifton worked together to develop this pedestrian demand estimation tool which can allow planners to allocate infrastructure …

Panic That Spreads Sociobehavioral Contagion In Pedestrian Evacuations, Terra Elzie, Erika Frydenlund, Andrew J. Collins, R. Michael Robinson

VMASC Publications

Crowds are a part of everyday public life, from stadiums and arenas to school hallways. Occasionally, pushing within the crowd spontaneously escalates to crushing behavior, resulting in injuries and even death. The rarity and unpredictability of these incidents provides few options to collect data for research on the prediction and prevention of hazardous emergent behaviors in crowds. This study takes a close look at the way states of agitation, such as panic, can spread through crowds. Group composition—mainly family groups composed of members with differing mobility levels—plays an important role in the spread of agitation through the crowd, ultimately affecting …

How To Estimate Pedestrian Demand, Kelly Clifton, Patrick Allen Singleton, Christopher D. Muhs, Robert J. Schneider

TREC Project Briefs

There is growing support to improve the quality of the walking environment and make investments to promote pedestrian travel. Such efforts often require analytical non-motorized planning tools to estimate levels of pedestrian demand that are sensitive to environmental and demographic factors at an appropriate scale. Despite this interest and need, current forecasting tools, particularly regional travel demand models, often fall short.

To address this gap, Oregon Metro and NITC researcher Kelly Clifton worked together to develop a pedestrian demand estimation tool. For generations, planners have been using statistical models to forecast travel demand, but these models have traditionally been auto-centered. …

Development Of A Pedestrian Demand Estimation Tool, Kelly Clifton, Patrick Allen Singleton, Christopher D. Muhs, Robert J. Schneider

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Most research on walking behavior has focused on mode choice or walk-trip frequency. In contrast, this study is one of the first to analyze the destination choice behaviors of pedestrians. Using about 4,500 walk trips from a 2011 household travel survey in the Portland, OR, region, we estimated multinomial logit pedestrian destination choice models for six trip purposes. Independent variables included terms for impedance (walk-trip distance); size (employment by type, households); supportive pedestrian environments (parks, a pedestrian index of the environment variable called PIE); barriers to walking (terrain, industrial-type employment); and traveler characteristics. Unique to this study was the use …

Development And Evaluation Of A Simulation System Based Upon Standard Pedestrian Thoroughfare Methodologies, Charles O. Pringle

All Master's Theses

This study was undertaken to determine whether existing simulation and modeling systems could be used to analyze and model pedestrian traffic flows. The study incorporates the Highway Capacity Manual 2000 (HCM) (Transportation Research Board, National Research Council [TRB], 2000a) methodologies into a ProModel simulation and then compares and contrasts the results of the HCM calculations with the ProModel simulation.

Pedestrian Accidents In Kentucky: 1972-1973, Charles V. Zegeer

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Pedestrian accident data in Kentucky were analyzed for 1972 and 1973 on a rural, urban, and statewide basis. Results showed that about 1500 pedestrian accidents occur in Kentucky each year and cost over $11 million. About 30 percent of pedestrian accidents in rural areas and 4 percent in urban areas are fatal. Although about 78 percent of Kentucky's pedestrian accidents occur in urban areas, over 62 percent of the pedestrian fatalities occur in rural areas.

Specific characteristics of pedestrian accidents were identified and related to human, environmental, and time factors. Highway and street improvements and safety programs generally considered to …