COMPARING THE OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY OF SIGNALIZED INTERSECTIONS WITH EXCLUSIVE AND CONCURRENT PEDESTRIAN PHASE OPERATIONS CONSIDERING PEDESTRIAN NON-COMPLIANCEMahmud, Md. Shakir and Magalotti, Mark J. (2018) COMPARING THE OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY OF SIGNALIZED INTERSECTIONS WITH EXCLUSIVE AND CONCURRENT PEDESTRIAN PHASE OPERATIONS CONSIDERING PEDESTRIAN NON-COMPLIANCE. Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh. (Unpublished)
AbstractIntersections are a critical location for pedestrian safety and also have a role in traffic operational efficiency. To improve pedestrian safety, the Exclusive Pedestrian Phase (EPP) was developed in the 1960s, which adds a phase entirely for pedestrian movements without any conflict with vehicles. The EPP is believed to be the safest type of pedestrian protection and has been installed in many places instead of Concurrent Pedestrian Phase (CPP). CPP allows pedestrians to cross in parallel to moving vehicles which allows conflicts between turning vehicles and pedestrians. The research hypothesis was to explore whether EPP has encouraged pedestrian non-compliance (crossing without the walk signal) and conflicting pedestrians (crossing in the direct path of a vehicle) or not and what the impact of such behavior is on vehicular intersection delay. This pedestrian behavior may lead to a less safe situation for pedestrians. The research findings, based on the field observations, were that non-compliant crossings were significantly higher for all of the intersections with EPP when compared to similar CPP intersections. For these highly non-compliant EPP crossing intersections, changes in intersection delay was simulated under the condition of compliant behavior and delay was found to decrease slightly. Another case of total conflicting behavior of pedestrians with EPP was also simulated and intersection delay also increased. However, when the conversion of an intersection operation from EPP to CPP was modeled, delay decreased by more than 50%, even with a very high number of conflicting pedestrians. In summary, it was found that intersections with EPP encourages pedestrian non-compliance behavior which also increases intersection delay. Even if pedestrian behavior was altered, to be more compliant, the delays would not be changed significantly. However, when an EPP intersection is converted to CPP operations, delays decreased significantly, and intersection operations improved. This could also result in improved pedestrian safety because pedestrian crossing compliance is much higher at intersections with CPP, as revealed by the research. Share
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