Walking behavior of individuals with and without disabilities at right-angle turning facility

Abstract

Urban designers need to carefully consider the walking behavior of pedestrians within different walking environments to accommodate their needs. Microscopic studies of the walking behavior of pedestrians have been conducted to understand walking behavior, which is then used for the pedestrian simulation models. A right-angle turning facility can be found in almost every built environment, the study of which is important to build pedestrian simulation models. Previous studies have failed to address the walking behavior of individuals with disabilities although they comprise a large population in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of the effect of right-angle turning facility on individuals with and without disabilities. The results obtained from this study clearly suggests that individuals with and without disabilities have different behavior at the right-angle facility, suggesting that pedestrian simulation models cannot be modeled in similar manner for all types of individuals. Differences in the walking behavior of individuals with visual disabilities and individuals with mobility disabilities from individuals without disabilities in right-angle turning facility suggests that individuals with disabilities should be considered different from the individuals without disabilities in the simulation models.