Effectiveness of modified pedestrian crossing signs in an urban area

Abstract

The District of Columbia currently uses the standard pedestrian warning signs and diagonal arrow plaques at a substantial number of uncontrolled crosswalks within the City. However, the widespread use of these measures appears to be ineffective in curbing the incidence of pedestrian involved crashes or pedestrian-vehicle conflicts. To compensate for the perceived lack of effectiveness of the standard pedestrian warning sign the District Department of Transportation developed a new side-of-street crossing sign to improve driver compliance based on pedestrian right-of-way laws. This study was aimed at determining the effectiveness (defined as the proportion of drivers approaching a crosswalk who stop or yield the right of way to a pedestrian in the crosswalk) of the experimental side-of-street pedestrian crossing sign compared to the standard sign, with and without rectangular rapid flashing beacons. Effectiveness of the side-of-street pedestrian sign and standard sign were observed at a total of 32 locations in the District over a one-year period using the “control” and “experimental” comparison approach. Video data for each location was obtained from March 2018 through February 2019 during typical weekdays for the morning and afternoon peak periods. The results of the study showed that the experimental signs with RRFBs provided higher driver compliance rates (yielding to pedestrians) compared to the standard signs for both the morning and afternoon peak periods. However, the differences in compliance rates for the experimental and standard signs were not statistically significant at a 95% confidence interval. Further evaluation of the signs is recommended using the “before” and “after” approach in addition to an assessment of crash statistics at the selected locations.