01519465

Component

Attention to user behavior and preferences has been a helpful tool in improving road safety and accident prevention in recent years. At the same time, there remain some important areas of road safety and accident prevention for which user preferences have not been explored. For instance, so far, road safety research has not addressed pedestrian and vulnerable user preferences with respect to roundabouts, despite the increasing construction of these intersections around the world. The present research stems from the fact that studies related to roundabout safety have typically put drivers in a privileged position, while generally overlooking the importance of safety as it relates to vulnerable users, especially pedestrians. Moreover, it handles this particular issue through an approach that has not been used so far: the Stated Preference (SP) survey. As such, this paper describes the justification for, the methodology, the analysis and conclusions of a SP survey designed to obtain pedestrian and vulnerable user preferences with respect to roundabout facilities in Quebec. In addition to the fact that an SP survey has not been used in this context before, another innovative facet of the work lies in the use of traffic micro-simulation software to create videos that serve as alternatives in Choice Tasks in the SP survey. The study finds that pedestrian preferences for roundabouts are affected by: the presence of pedestrian crossings (and their location relative to the roundabout), signage and pedestrian islands, as well as the number of traffic lanes they must cross. In addition to these design features, pedestrian preferences for roundabouts are also affected by the speed and volume of traffic – something the authors were able to evaluate thanks to the use of traffic simulation videos.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB75 Roundabouts. Alternate title: Pedestrian Preferences with Respect to Roundabouts: Video-Based Stated-Preference Survey.

01503729

14-5528

English

14p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Pedestrian safety; Pedestrian vehicle interface; Pedestrians; Roundabouts; Simulation; Stated preferences

Quebec (Province)

Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-5528

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 3:56PM