The use of gait parameters to evaluate pedestrian behavior at scramble phase signalized intersections

Abstract

SummaryPedestrian scramble phasing is usually implemented to reduce pedestrian‐vehicle conflicts and therefore increase the safety of the intersection. However, to adequately determine the benefits of scramble phasing, it is necessary to understand how pedestrians react to such an unconventional design. This study investigates changes in pedestrian crossing behavior following the implementation of a scramble phase by examining the spatiotemporal gait parameters (step length and step frequency). This detailed microscopic‐level analysis provides insight into changes in pedestrian walking mechanisms as well as the effect of various pedestrian and intersection characteristics. The study uses video data collected at a scramble phase signalized intersection in Oakland, California. Gait parameters were found to be influenced by pedestrian gender, age, group size, crosswalk length, and pedestrian signal indications. Both average step length and walking speed were significantly higher for diagonally crossing pedestrians compared with pedestrians crossing on the conventional crosswalks. Pedestrians were found to have the tendency to increase their step length more than their step frequency to increase walking speed. It was also found that, compared with men, women generally increase their walking speed by increasing their step frequency more than step length. However, when in non‐compliance with signal indications, women increase their walking speed by increasing their step length more than step frequency. It was also found that older pedestrians do not significantly change their walking behavior when in non‐compliance with signal indications. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Automated analysis of pedestrian walking behaviour at a signalised intersection in China

“…As shown in the figures, one unit change in the step length leads to 1.9 unit change in the walking speed, while one unit change in the step frequency leads to 0.66 unit change in the walking speed, indicating that the effect of step length on walking speed is more significant than the effect of step frequency on walking speed. This result is confirmed by the previous studies by Hediyeh et al [45] and Reyad et al [52]. Some other studies [53] also reported that the relationships between stride length, step frequency and walking speed vary by age in the form of a linear equation or log-log linear equation.…”

“…Recently, the automated techniques are adopted to extract pedestrian gait parameters from videos sensors. For example, Hediyeh et al [1,45] conducted studies that relied on computer vision techniques to collect pedestrian gait parameters and walking speed from Vancouver, British Columbia and Oakland, California. Gait variation parameters were useful for the automated classification of pedestrian attributes (e.g.…”

Biomechanical implications of walking with indigenous footwear

“…It has been long established that spatiotemporal gait variables are affected by walking speed. Using the step frequency/speed equation in Hediyeh, Sayed, and Zaki (2015), our speed difference would explain a decrease in step duration of 6.8% (barefoot) and 8.8% (shod). We have measured much smaller reductions of approximately 2% where significant.…”

Exploring walking gait features for the automated recognition of distracted pedestrians

“…Walking mechanism can be explained through the spatio‐temporal gait parameters (step length and frequency [32, 33] that can be extracted from the pedestrian trajectories. The walking speed is estimated by placing screens around the region of interest and measuring the amount of time it takes for the pedestrian track to cross this region.…”