Pedestrian quality of service at unprotected mid-block crosswalk locations under mixed traffic conditions: towards quantitative approach

Safety, comfort, convenience and minimal delay are essential for pedestrians at mid-block crosswalk locations. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the quality of crosswalk with these qualitative parameters. In this study, qualitative parameters such as safety, crossing opportunities (available time gaps) and delay index values are considered as a single measure of effectiveness as a Pedestrian Crossing Index (PCI) for evaluation of Quality Of Service (QOS) at unprotected mid-block crosswalk locations under mixed traffic conditions. Further, the study is aimed at identifying the factors contributing to the pedestrian QOS. In order to achieve these objectives, field surveys were conducted at eight different unprotected mid-block crosswalk locations to collect pedestrian individual (age and gender), behavioural, traffic and roadway characteristics. An ordered probit model has been developed to find out the significant factors contributing to the pedestrian QOS by taking QOS as the dependent variable and other collected variables as independent variables. The model results show that several factors have significant effect on pedestrian QOS and out of these, factors such as rolling behaviour, speed change behaviour of pedestrian, vehicle speed, number of lanes and number of vehicle encountered were identified as the primary factors affecting pedestrian QOS at unprotected midblock crosswalk locations. The developed model may be useful for design and evaluation of the existing pedestrian QOS at unprotected mid-block crosswalk locations under mixed traffic conditions. First published online 04 May 2016