Modelling Pedestrian Perspectives in Evaluating Satisfaction Levels of Urban Roadway Walking Facilities

Abstract

Pedestrian Level of Service (PLOS) is a multifaceted expression which represents the working condition of walking facilities and satisfaction level of pedestrian experience while using these facilities. In this regard this study aimed at developing PLOS models for three pedestrian facilities such as sidewalk, signalized intersection and un-signalized intersection by using qualitative data sets. Total 2730 pedestrian’s real time sense of satisfaction data were collected from ten cities of India. Behavioral responses were taken in order to assess variation with different age and gender from study areas having miscellaneous activities. Taking sets of questions, different variable scores were estimated to provide a wide variation of independent variable that will be more reliable for model fitting. Before model development degree of dependency has been examined with the help of discriminant factor analysis. Implementing ridge regression technique three different PLOS models have been developed for three pedestrian facilities. PLOS scores found by using the proposed models were classified by applying GA-Fuzzy clustering technique in order to get six PLOS ranges (A-F). At signalized intersection 3% of participants were extremely dissatisfied with the facility and they gave rating of >5 for PLOS score. This high score was because of pedestrian speed was severely restricted at some places due to the left and permissible right turning vehicles. Results also revealed that for un-signalized intersection nearly 23% of participants were having PLOS score of >4 as waiting time was more than expected and also pedestrian had to face conflict with vehicles while crossing.