Pedestrians' Crossing Behavior at Marked Crosswalks on Channelized Right-Turn Lanes at Intersections

Unsignalized marked crosswalks are problematic locations from pedestrians' safety perspective. Although the priority rule at such locations is clear; pedestrians have the absolute right of way over vehicles, driver often compete with pedestrians over the right of way which risks pedestrian safety and impose extra delays on pedestrians. In developing countries, as concluded in many previous studies, vehicles usually do not give right of way to pedestrians, leaving them with the only choice to wait until an accepted gap is available. In Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries where vehicles are the predominant mode of travel, pedestrians are receiving lesser priority. Drivers usually hijack the right of way from pedestrians which often causes safety threats. Therefore, pedestrians loose the reason for crossing at these designed locations pushing them to cross at arbitrary locations increasing their safety risk. This paper investigates influencing factors on the crossing behavior of pedestrians at marked crosswalks located on dedicated right-turn lanes. A study site from Doha, Qatar was selected for video recording and data analysis. A sample of 235 pedestrian observations was used for waiting behavior, crossing speed, accepted gaps, and driver yielding behavior analysis. The results showed that the waiting behavior was independent of pedestrian characteristics and relied only on the traffic characteristics. In addition, the average crossing speed was 1.43m/s and the gender, distraction, and group significantly affected the crossing speed. Beside, the distracted pedestrians and pedestrians crossing in groups accepted significantly larger gaps compared to undistracted and individual pedestrians. Moreover, about 15% of drivers yielded for pedestrians, yielding was irrespective of gender and mainly affected by the crossing direction. Consequently, innovative strategies in terms of engineering measures and awareness are needed to improve pedestrian safety at these locations. � 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.Scopu