Parametric Study of Pedestrian Speeds at Midblock Crossings

Abstract

The speed of pedestrians is a major issue in the design and provision of pedestrian facilities. Pedestrians’ speed while crossing a road depends on various characteristics related to pedestrians, traffic, and physical features of the road. A few of these characteristics are age and gender of the pedestrian, pedestrian movement singly or in a group, traffic volume, size of the urban area, and width of the road. This paper presents pedestrian crossing speeds estimated at midblock sections of the roads selected in three cities in India: Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Delhi. It is observed that 15th-percentile speeds are in the range of 0.83–1.02 m/s, which is less than the crossing speed (1.2 m/s) used in pedestrian facility designs. Two-way movements on roads result in higher psychophysical activity, thus increasing the crossing speed by 6%. The width of the road to be crossed, the pattern of crossing, and directional traffic movement also affect the crossing speeds. It is observed that crossing speed increas...