01515269

Component

Walking facilities are important infrastructures in communities. These facilities should be designed to accommodate the needs of all types of pedestrians. Unfortunately, existing design guidelines fail to offer adequate consideration for individuals with disabilities due to a lack of empirical data. To begin to fill that knowledge gap, a controlled large-scale research project was conducted at Utah State University (USU) to study the walking behavior of people with various types of disabilities in various walking facilities. These facilities include passageway, different types of angles (right and oblique), bottleneck, and stairwells. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to examine the impacts of individuals with disabilities on crowd walking speed and to study the impacts of different walking facilities on the movements of various pedestrian groups. Results show that the presence of individuals with disabilities in a crowd significantly reduces the crowd speed. Statistical analysis also reveals similarities and differences between the walking speeds of various pedestrian groups. A regression model is also calibrated to predict the speed of various types of pedestrians in different walking facilities. The findings of this paper may aid urban planners and walking facility designers in understanding the needs of people with low mobility.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF10 Pedestrians.

01503729

14-2134

English

20p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Behavior; Mathematical models; Pedestrian areas; Pedestrian flow; Pedestrians; Persons with disabilities; Regression analysis; Speed; Walking

Utah State University

Logan (Utah)

Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-2134

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 2:45PM