Estimation of pedestrian level of service for indian roads

Abstract

Over the last decade there has been a steep rise in the volume of traffic in India. This has led to congested and jams packed roads. In order to avoid these situations, now a day the traffic engineers are designing vehicle oriented roads which has jeopardized the safety of pedestrian traffic in the highly populated urban areas. The study aims at finding a walkable environment for pedestrians with minimum pedestrian-vehicle interaction. For this purpose it is essential to determine the LOS of the study area. The LOS is a measure to determine the compatibility of bicycles, pedestrians, vehicles etc. the HCM defines six PLOS levels namely LOS A, B, C, D, E, F. By determining the PLOS score of the area the LOS of the area was deduced. In order to determine PLOS a set of qualitative data was collected by devising a questionnaire which was used to get the real time response of people in road environment. People of across all genders and age group participated in the survey. Most of the questions were rating based with some yes/no types and some were questions were based on with logical choices. After segmenting the data it was analyzed by using inverse variance method. The pedestrian level of safety was determined and it was found out that the study area is an ideal location for pedestrians to travel as they perceive the area safe and find all the amenities in the road which would attract the people to walk.