Modelling the pedestrian dilemma zone at uncontrolled midblock sections

Area of Science:

• Traffic Safety Engineering
• Human Factors in Transportation
• Urban Planning

Background:

• Pedestrians at high-speed midblock crossings struggle to judge safe gaps, increasing crash risk, especially in developing nations like India.
• Non-yielding vehicular traffic exacerbates the danger for pedestrians attempting to cross roads.
• Pedestrians exhibit a dilemma zone, uncertain about accepting or rejecting gaps of intermediate sizes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To model the pedestrian dilemma zone for high-speed roads (60 km/h speed limit).
• To analyze spatial gap acceptance behavior of pedestrians at uncontrolled midblock crossings.
• To provide insights for reducing pedestrian-vehicle crashes.

Main Methods:

• Field data collection using high-definition video cameras at two uncontrolled midblock crossings in India.
• Analysis of 1,107 pedestrian observations using binary logit models.
• Investigating spatial gap acceptance behavior variations.

Main Results:

• Vehicle speed and distance significantly affect dilemma zone length and distribution.
• Vehicle type, pedestrian type (alone/group), crossing speed, and waiting time influence gap acceptance.
• Pedestrian gender was found to have no significant impact on crossing decisions.

Conclusions:

• Identified dilemma zone boundaries aid pedestrians in judging safe crossing gaps.
• The proposed dilemma zone assists pedestrians in making precise decisions at high-speed crossings.
• Aims to reduce the probability of pedestrian-vehicle crashes.