Effects of safety measures on driver’s speed behavior at pedestrian crossings

This paper reports the results of a multi-factorial experiment that was aimed at the following:(a) analyzing driver’s speed behavior while approaching zebra crossings under different conditions ofvehicle–pedestrian interaction and with respect to several safety measures and (b) comparing safetymeasures and identifying the most effective treatment for zebra crossings. Three safety countermea-sures at pedestrian crossings (curb extensions, parking restrictions and advanced yield markings) andthe condition of no treatment (baseline condition) were designed on a two-lane urban road and imple-mented in an advanced driving simulator. Several conditions of vehicle–pedestrian interaction (in termsof the time left for the vehicle to get to the zebra crossing at the moment the pedestrian starts the cross-ing) were also simulated. Forty-two drivers completed the driving in the simulator. Based on the recordedspeed data, two analyses were performed.The first analysis, which focused on the mean speed profiles, revealed that the driver’s speed behaviorwas affected by conditions of vehicle–pedestrian interaction and was fully consistent with previousfindings in the literature and with the Threat Avoidance Model developed by Fuller.Further analysis was based on variables that were obtained from the speed profiles of drivers (the speedat the beginning of the deceleration phase, the distance from the zebra crossing where the decelerationbegan, the minimum speed value reached during the deceleration, the distance from the pedestriancrossing where the braking phase ended and the average deceleration rate). Multivariate variance anal-ysis (MANOVA) revealed that there was a significant main effect for safety measures and for pedestrianconditions (the presence and absence of a pedestrian). The results identified that the curb extension wasthe countermeasure that induces the most appropriate driver’s speed behavior while approaching thezebra crossing. This conclusion was also confirmed by outcomes of the questionnaire on the counter-measure’s effectiveness. More than 80% of the drivers perceived that the curb extensions were effective,which indicates that when this countermeasure was present, the drivers were more willing to yield andthat the visibility of the pedestrian crossing was better. For this countermeasure, the lowest number ofinteractions in which the drivers did not yield to a pedestrian was also recorded.