Pedestrian safety at midblock crossings on dual carriageway roads in Polish cities
Authors:
- Piotr Szagala,
- Andrzej Brzezinski,
- Mariusz Kiec,
- Marcin Budzynski,
- Joanna Wachnicka,
- Sylwia Pazdan
Abstract
Road crossings across two or more lanes in one direction are particularly dangerous due to limited sight distance and high vehicle speeds. To improve their safety, road authorities should provide safety treatments. These may include additional measures to reduce speed and narrow the road cross-section and the introduction of active pedestrian crossings. Equipped with flashing lights activated automatically when a pedestrian is detected, the crossings are painted red and have an anti-skid surface on approaches. The article presents an analysis of road user behaviour at pedestrian crossings on dual carriageways with a varying provision of road safety measures in some Polish cities. It also evaluates the effectiveness of the measures over time. The study was conducted before, immediately after and one year after the additional signage was introduced. The evaluation is based on how vehicle speeds changed before the pedestrian crossing, how pedestrians behaved versus the vehicle and their readiness to cross the street. The number of conflicts on selected crossings was also evaluated. The safety treatments under analysis were found to be less effective than the traditional pedestrian safety measures such as speed cushions or roads narrowed to one lane. This suggests that if used on dual carriageways the measures should only be temporary and should ultimately be replaced with traffic lights or a grade separated solution (a footbridge or tunnel) on exits from urban areas. No clear-cut conclusions about pedestrian safety can be drawn based on the traffic conflicts in question. The article is divided into the following sections: introduction with a review of the literature on pedestrian and driver behaviour studies at pedestrian crossings, including midblock crossings and dual carriageways; a description of the research method and test sites, the results, discussion of the results and conclusion.
- Record ID
- CUTed338822646741918e1969f66c67d967
- Publication categories
- ;
- Author
- Journal series
- Sustainability, ISSN , e-ISSN 2071-1050, Biweekly
- Issue year
- 2022
- Vol
- 14
- No
- 9
- Pages
- [1-13]
- Article number
- 5703
- Other elements of collation
- fot.; tab.; wykr.; Bibliografia (na s.) - 11-13; Bibliografia (liczba pozycji) - 67; Oznaczenie streszczenia - Abstr.; Numeracja w czasopiśmie - Vol. 14, Iss. 9, Spec. Iss.
- Substantive notes
- Special Issue: Traffic Engineering and Rural Development
- Keywords in English
- road safety, pedestrian crossing, pedestrian safety, dual carriageway
- ASJC Classification
- ; ;
- DOI
- DOI:10.3390/su14095703 Opening in a new tab
- URL
- https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5703 Opening in a new tab
- Language
- eng (en) English
- License
- Score (nominal)
- 100
- Score source
- journalList
- Score
- Publication indicators
- Additional fields
- Indeksowana w: Web of Science, Scopus
- Uniform Resource Identifier
- https://cris.pk.edu.pl/info/article/CUTed338822646741918e1969f66c67d967/
- URN
urn:pkr-prod:CUTed338822646741918e1969f66c67d967
* presented citation count is obtained through Internet information analysis, and it is close to the number calculated by the Publish or PerishOpening in a new tab system.