Exploration of Pedestrian Gap-Acceptance Behavior at Selected Locations

Abstract

This paper describes the efforts to evaluate pedestrian acceptance as part of a recent TCRP-NCHRP project. Pedestrian crossing data were collected at 42 study sites in seven states. From those sites, 45 pedestrian approaches had at least one crossing event where a pedestrian rejected at least one gap, and 11 of those approaches had at least 20 such crossing events. Focusing on the 11 approaches, researchers evaluated the gap-acceptance behavior of crossing pedestrians with a two-part analysis: behavioral analysis and statistical analysis. Behavioral analysis revealed that pedestrians did not always wait to cross the street when all lanes were completely clear; instead, they anticipated that the lanes would clear as they crossed and used a rolling gap to cross the street. Statistical analysis revealed that the 11 approaches had 85th percentile accepted gaps between 5.3 and 9.4 s, with a trend of increasing length as crossing distance increased. All the observed 85th percentile accepted gaps were ...