Estimating of Critical Gaps at Uncontrolled Intersections under Heterogeneous Traffic Conditions

Entry Capacity Quantifying Model through Drivers’ Behavior at Roundabouts

The safety of highway-railroad grade crossings (HRGC) is still an issue in the United States of America (USA). The grade crossing is where a railroad crosses a road at the same level without any over or underpass. To improve the safety of crossings, the crossings’ condition should be explored from several aspects such as engineering design (speed limit, warning signs, etc.), road condition (number of lanes, surface markings, etc.), rail design (the type of track, ballast, etc.), temporal variables (weather, visibility, time of day, lightning, etc.), social variables (population, race, etc.), and last but not least, spatial variables (the type of land use, distance to nearby intersections, distance to nearby crossings, distance to nearby specific land uses including emergency medical services (EMS), etc.). It has always been a hot topic for the rail traffic safety projects to eliminate the number of grade crossings by closing redundant crossings in an area. The closure of a few HRGC in a specific geographical area is known as consolidation programs. Several studies have been done so far to define whether a crossing in a neighborhood needs safety improvements, level separations, or closure programs. In this research, I aim to investigate the applicability of spatial analysis, machine learning, and text mining methods to study the safety of HRGC. To do so, two datasets of HRGC data and HRGC crash data were downloaded and used from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Since HRGC is a nationwide problem, first I considered the case study to the extent of the USA. Then I narrowed down to the state of Louisiana to create a more reliable consolidation program. Finally, focusing on the spatial variables that may influence closure programs, I developed a consolidation model for a smaller area, East Baton Rouge Parish (EBRP). Hopefully, this research could assist rail safety personnel by making better decisions on highway-rail grade crossing closures and thus would benefit residents of a city experiencing a safer area to reside. Furthermore, it is possible that results of this research could be extended to other states, where they face similar problems with the safety of HRGC.

As the population increases, the speed of population movement also increases and the availability of proper infrastructure in crowded centers decreases. One of the problems in terms of pedestrian facilities in Indonesia's urban areas is the lack of fulfillment of pedestrian needs, both in terms of quality and quantity. The development of pedestrian facilities in Indonesia has not become a priority comparable to the development of facilities for other modes of transportation. The lack of public understanding of pedestrian path facilities indicates the need for attention from the government in fulfilling the functional needs of pedestrian paths. Because of that it is important to understand the public's perception of the need for pedestrian facilities on Jalan Veteran Lamongan. Distribute questionnaires to the community and then carry out validity and reliability tests so as to produce public perceptions of pedestrian lane facilities on veteran roads, namely pedestrian paths, which need additional attention for facilities and infrastructure. 34% of respondents said there were many deficiencies in the quality of the sidewalks, then 31% said they lacked the quality of facilities for the disabled, then 33% of respondents said they lacked the quality of accessibility, then 31% of respondents felt they lacked the level of completeness of facilities, then 33% respondents said they lacked the level of safety, then as many as 36% of respondents felt they lacked the level of security, and finally 37% of respondents felt they lacked the level of satisfaction.

Safety of residential areas, especially affordable housing has become an important aspect, and has been listed as part of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) initiatives by the United Nation (UN). Several initiatives on measuring the safety level have been proposed, including Safe City Index 2019, Safe City Program, Defensible Space Concept, crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), Smart Sustainable Cities, etc. However, some of these initiatives focus only on crime, others focus on steps to improve safety and other models that are broader but not specific to safety. Besides that, these models place less emphasis on the aspects of spatial assessment, especially the safety level assessment based on affordable housing location in Malaysia. To handle these issues, this study’s aim is to enhance current indicators to assess the safety level of affordable housing, using Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as a case study area. This study identified 6 indicators; crime, safety and security, infrastructure security, accessibility, natural disaster, and health security. Spatial analysis was done based on the indicators, and from the results, it shows that almost all of the affordable housing score are more than 50%, with the highest score is 76.50%, and the lowest score is 44.7%. This indicator can be used as a basis to assess the safety level of affordable housing, especially in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Safe and accessible pedestrian sidewalk is significant to sustainable infrastructural development and industrialisation of core of cities in world over. Studies have shown that safety of pedestrian on walkways aid their ability to shop more than sitting in the comfort of their vehicles. The study modelled the influence of lateral separation (LS) (sidewalk separation); volume of motor vehicles (VM); speed of motor vehicle (SM) and vehicular access to adjoining properties (VA) on pedestrians’ level of safety (PLS) along the streets of core area of Ikeja. Fifty-six (56) road segments were observed, measured and field information obtained analysed. Though, LS, VM, SM and VA contributed about 58.1% to (PLS) in Ikeja, the results further revealed that PLS increased with LS distant vehicles (βsd=0.60, tsd=5.14), but decreased with higher VM (βvv=0.20, tvv=1.73) and SM (βsp=0.07, tsp=0.76). It was recommended that a standardised distance of LS from moving traffic and its wideness; the required SM of vehicles and increased investment on pedestrian facilities in urban centre will improve pedestrian safety and as well promote sustainable industrialisation since pedestrian form major traffic of the industries.

BackgroundAccident statistics in Sri Lanka shows that nearly 35% of the fatalities are pedestrians and they are at a higher risk on roads. The main reason for the above is...

Comparative Study of Pedestrian Crossing Behaviour at Uncontrolled Intersection and Midblock Locations

Analysis of walking speeds and success rates on mid-block crossings using virtual reality simulation

Studying pedestrians' twice-crossing behavior is of great significance to enhance safety and efficiency for pedestrians at signalized intersections. However, researchers have paid little attention to analyze and model pedestrians' red-light running behavior on a two-stage crossing at signalized intersections. This paper focuses on analyzing the characteristics of pedestrian red-light violation behavior at the two stages, including the time distribution of violation behavior, the consistency of violation behavior, and the violation behavior in group. A goal-oriented and time-driven red-light violation behavior model was proposed for pedestrian two-stage crossing. A video-recording method was used to collect field data, and the results show that pedestrians in the two directions present different red-light violation behaviors in time selection and violation count, as well as, pedestrians in the two stages of a direction present different red-light violation behaviors in time selection. The main reasons leading to the phenomena were analyzed, regarding from people's cognitive psychology and visual perception. The results also show that the proposed model is effective in simulating pedestrian red-light violation behavior of twice crossing. This research provides a theoretical basis for optimizing signal timing, improving pedestrian safety and developing user-friendly transportation system.

BackgroundEnvironmental audit tools must be valid in order to accurately estimate the association between built environmental characteristics and bicycling injury risk.ObjectivesTo examine the inter-rater reliability of a built environment audit...

Analyses of pedestrian-related issues have been gaining much attention from researchers in recent years, particularly studies of pedestrian safety and pedestrian level of service (LOS) in developing countries. The focus for evaluating pedestrian LOS has shifted from quantitative methods to qualitative methods and factors to be considered have been changing. Crosswalks (namely, signalized, unsignalized, and midblock) are complex locations because of the interaction of pedestrians with the vehicle flow. Pedestrian LOS at crosswalks is quite different from that on sidewalks. A measure of effectiveness (MOE) is usually adopted for evaluation of pedestrian facilities, and the MOE changes with the type of facility. Pedestrian delay and space at the corner are considered as MOEs for signalized intersections. The MOE might depend on pedestrian safety, delay, available vehicle gaps (crossing difficulty), and behavior of pedestrians as well as that of vehicle drivers at unprotected midblock crosswalks. This study sought to identify the importance of pedestrian LOS in the context of developing countries, particularly at unprotected midblock crosswalks. To achieve this objective, a review of the literature was carried out on the pedestrian LOS at various facilities such as the sidewalk, intersection, and midblock crosswalk. The review highlighted the need for further pedestrian LOS studies at various facilities under mixed traffic.

Current Chinese campus planning and design have neglected to promote walking activity (WA). Lacking WA and developing sedentary and physical inactivity habits can lead to obesity, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases. Academia has confirmed that WA can be facilitated by planning and designing built environment (BE) interventions. Accordingly, this study aims to explore the effect of campus BE features on walking in different regions’ campuses and present nuanced campus planning and design strategies. We selected the objectively measured BE features of destination accessibility, land use, street connectivity, and spatial configuration. Environmental design qualities and pedestrian facilities were chosen as the micro-level BE features. We applied GIS 10.1 and sDNA to calculate gross BE features and field audit tools to measure street environmental features and pedestrian volume (PV). We built negative binomial regression models and eliminated spatial autocorrelation to investigate and compare the BE correlates of walking in urban and suburban campuses. Similarities and differences were found among the outcomes derived from the two regions. We found that campus Walk Score, land use attributes of facility density and park land ratio, complexity, and other features closely correlate with PV in the two types of campuses. Comparatively, closeness, transparency, and complexity only influence urban campuses’ PV, while block length, entropy, facility land ratio, and sidewalk quality only correlate with PV on suburban campuses. According to these findings, we proposed different and targeted campus renewal and planning strategies for WA and walkability promotion.

This case study profiles the steps taken to develop a process for developing a transportation information management system protype. The case study was initiated in response to a pattern of growth whereas, Tanzania is increasingly becoming a mobile society that suffers severely from traffic congestion, delay and mobile source pollution. Meeting the challenges of greater mobility, accessibility, land use development, economic growth and revenue constraints requires that transport investment and maintenance strategies be optimized. In this case study we define transportation information management system (TIMS), in the context of the Tanzania 2014 transportation network. In doing so an argument is made for developing a base line digital transport network analysis, as a starting point. In doing so, we identify a suite of decision-making tools and a stable of performance variables. As well, this case study presents a draft: work plan which emerged during this effort. Developing effective congestion relief strategies requires going beyond the collection of geotechnical like shoulder width, guardrails, vegetation, road length and width, culverts, volume, drainage, terrain, rail crossing, number of lanes, bridges locations, and type of terrain. A comprehensive analysis of congestion requires a fully loaded transportation database with the following characteristics: regional, trunk line, and local roads; travel, time, ADT, population, employment, landuse, and income data at the regional and ward level and; transit line and multi modal infrastructure data. To test multiple congestion mitigation strategies advanced analysis tools are helpful to analyze the impact that network connectivity, pedestrian flows, population growth, travel demand, landuse, and community have accessibility. Equally important is the need have a skilled professional, and technical workforce that has not only the theoretical knowledge but also the technical training to use buffer, proximity, travel demand and simulation tools to assess the impacts of population concentrations, vehicle travel and goods movement.

BackgroundCharacteristics of the neighborhood built environment are associated with physical activity (PA). However, few studies with representative samples have examined environmental correlates of domain-specific PA in Latin America. We examined the associations of the perceived neighborhood built environment with domain-specific PA in a large sample of adults from eight Latin American countries.MethodsThis study examined data from 8185 adults (aged 18–65 years) from eight Latin American countries. The Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Survey - Abbreviated (NEWS-A) scale was used to assess perceptions of land use mix–diversity, land use mix-access, street connectivity, walking/cycling facilities, aesthetics, safety from traffic, and safety from crime. Perceived proximity from home to public open spaces (metropolitan parks, playgrounds, public squares) and to shopping centers was also measured. Transport-related and leisure-time PA were assessed using the long form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Both logistic and linear regression models were estimated on pooled data.ResultsPerceptions of higher land use mix-access (OR: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.22,1.61), the existence of many alternative routes in the neighbourhood (1.12; 1.04,1.20), slow speed of traffic (1.19; 1.03,1.35) and few drivers exceeding the speed limits (1.09; 1.03,1.15) were associated with greater odds of reporting at least 10 min/week of transport-related PA. Perceptions of higher levels of land use mix-diversity, better aesthetics and greater safety from crime, the presence of crosswalks and pedestrian signals, and greater proximity of shopping centers were associated with more min/week of transport-related PA. Perceptions of higher land use mix-diversity (1.12; 1.05,1.20), higher land use mix-access (1.27; 1.13,1.43), more walking/cycling facilities (1.18; 1.09,1.28), and better aesthetics (1.10; 1.02,1.18) were associated with greater odds of engaging in at least 10 min/week of leisure-time PA versus none. Perceptions of higher land use mix-diversity were associated with more min/week of leisure PA.ConclusionsDifferent perceived neighborhood built environment characteristics were associated with domain-specific PA among adults from Latin America countries. Interventions designed to modify perceptions of the neighbourhood built environment might influence initiation or maintenance of domain-specific PA.Trial registrationClinicalTrials. Gov NCT02226627. Retrospectively registered on August 27, 2014.

Pedestrian facilities in Indonesia are still very inadequate. One of the most riskiesty pedestrian facilities that is underestimated is the pedestrian foot-bridge. The research objective of controlling the arrangement of the pedestrian foot-bridge construction is to control the design and location of the pedestrian foot-bridge construction, and to make the control criteria and determine the appropriate control components. This research is done with qualitative methods, namely with literature review. With this following study, the result is expected to be able to optimize the location of crossing bridges, increasinge the level of security, safety, and comfort of pedestrians to cross the street.