Evaluation of pedestrian crossing speed change patterns at unprotected mid-block crosswalks in India

The pedestrian crossing speed is one of the important factors in pedestrian crossing facility design. Research studies have shown that the pedestrian crossing speed is influenced by availability of green time at signalized crosswalks and pedestrian characteristics such as gender and age. However, the effects of vehicular time gap and additional pedestrian behavioural characteristics on pedestrian crossing speed patterns have not been examined at unprotected (un-signalized) mid-block crosswalks. The present study examines the pedestrian crossing speed change patterns considering the effect of vehicular time gap and pedestrian behavioural characteristics such as rolling behaviour, path change, etc., at selected unprotected mid-block crosswalk locations under mixed traffic conditions in India . Video graphic survey has been conducted at eight selected unprotected mid-block crosswalk locations in Mumbai City for two to three hours duration during normal weather conditions. The data was mined using AVS video editor software, and the extracted data includes pedestrian speed, pedestrian characteristics (gender and age), pedestrian behaviour (rolling behaviour, path change, etc.), vehicle characteristics (type and speed of the vehicle) and traffic characteristics. Pedestrian crossing speed change patterns (whether pedestrian is changing speed or not while crossing a road) was considered as a binary variable and a logistic regression model was developed with vehicular gaps and other pedestrian behavioural characteristics as independent variables. The results revealed that there is a reduction in pedestrian crossing speed change behaviour with an increase in vehicular gap size at unprotected mid-block crosswalks. The younger pedestrians have more probability of exhibiting crossing speed change patterns as compared to the elderly pedestrians at mid-block crosswalks. Further, it is identified that there is an increase in pedestrian crossing speed with increase in vehicle speed as well as heavy vehicle type. Pedestrian behavioural characteristics also have a significant influence on crossing speed. The study findings would provide useful information to designers and policy makers for design of pedestrian crossing facility under mixed traffic conditions.