Dr Richard Tay

Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow

School of Business IT & Logistics

Personal Space & Pedestrian Level of Service

ITE Seminar

October 2015

Background

� Need for a more sustainable transportation system and higher demands for more active travel modes.

Need to increase cycling and walking.

� To encourage more walking trips, the provision of comfortable pedestrian facilities is paramount.

� In highway design, the pedestrian comfort level is normally indicated by the pedestrian level of service (PLOS) for a given roadway or facility.

PLOS determine by Highway Capacity Manual (HCM)

originally developed for analyzing vehicle flow.

� The relationship between vehicle flow and vehicle level of service is quite different from the relationship between pedestrian flow and pedestrian level of service.

• To develop a behavioral theory based procedure that incorporates the concept of personal space and evasive movements to determine the pedestrians’ comfort and perceived levels of service for pedestrian facilities in commercial, residential and leisure areas.

Objective of Study Concept of Personal Space

Hall (1990)

Concept of Personal Space Concept of Personal Space

Evasive Movement

� We assume that when a pedestrian feels that his or her personal space is encroached on, he or she will take evasive movements to protect that space.

� Therefore, the number of evasive movements will be used to capture pedestrian conflicts and level of discomfort.

� If a pedestrian facility has a high average number of evasive movements undertaken by its users, we will assume that this facility will provide pedestrians with a low level of comfort and hence, should have a low level of service.

Theoretical Model

Personal Personal Personal Personal

SpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceEvasive Evasive Evasive Evasive

MovementMovementMovementMovement

Level of Level of Level of Level of

ServiceServiceServiceService

#EM ↑ PLOS↓

Methodology

� This research used two types of data:

� Subjective data collected from a pedestrian questionnaire survey.

� Objective data collected from video recordings.

� It collected these data twice:

� Calibration sample (569 interviews and video recording at 28 sites)

� Validation sample (216 interviews and video recording at 12 sites)

Physical Physical Physical Physical

AttributesAttributesAttributesAttributesPS &EMPS &EMPS &EMPS &EM

Level of Level of Level of Level of

ServiceServiceServiceService

Measurement from Video Recording

Analysis of Longitudinal Space Analysis of Lateral Space

� 468 samples of five minutes each.� Both peak and off-peak periods.� Sites: 8 residential, 15 commercial, 5 recreational � Sidewalk widths: 3.1-10.0m. � Flow: 3,400 - 9,025 ped/hour

Physical Attributes

Pedestrian Survey

� The pedestrians were asked to list the top two factors they considered as most important when rating the pedestrian facilities, including � walking speed� number of pedestrian conflicts� continuity of pedestrian facilities� aesthetics� influence of surrounding vehicles� maintenance of sidewalk pavements

� Participants were also asked to state their best judgment on the levels of service of the facilities at their locations and these were coded from A (excellent) to F (unfavorable).

Results – KHCM vs Pedestrian Ratings of Service

Pedestrian Survey Results

A B C D E F

KH

CM

Results

A28.7

(33)

42.6

(49)

27.0

(31)

1.7

(3)

0

(0)

0

(0)

B8.4

(20)

29.0

(69)

42.0

(100)

18.5

(44)

2.1

(5)

0

(0)

C0

(0)

8.9

(8)

34.4

(31)

42.2

(38)

14.4

(13)

0

(0)

D0

(0)

0

(0)

5.6

(3)

42.6

(23)

33.3

(18)

18.5

(10)

E0

(0)

0

(0)

0

(0)

13.9

(10)

31.9

(23)

52.8

(38)

� HCM over-estimate the level of service significantly

� The two most important contributing factors reported were walking speed and number of conflicts.

Results – Important Attributes

Attributes Most Important Second Most Important

Walking Speed 40.1% 24.1%

Number of Conflict 23.7% 25.5%

Results - Personal Space

�̅= 0.65; �� = 0.49

Y = −49.249 ln X� + 52.530 ln �� − 137.519

Results – Regression of Physical Attributes on EM

Y: Number of evasive movementsX1: Sidewalk width (m) X2: Pedestrian volume (pedestrians/minute)

Description Variable Min Max Mean Std. Dev

Evasive Movements (#) Y 4.00 125.00 40.67 23.18

Sidewalk Width (m) X� 3.10 10.00 4.92 2.27

Volume (ped/min) X� 41.00 441.00 139.82 78.28

Residential (0,1) X� 0.00 1.00 0.69 0.46

Commercial (0,1) X� 0.00 1.00 0.20 0.40

Leisure (0,1) X� 0.00 1.00 0.11 0.32

R-square value of 0.77

Results – Calibration of PLOS Using EM

LOS

Evasive

Movements

(Number/min/m)

Space

(m2/ped)

Flow Rate

(ped/min/m)

Average

Speed

(m/sec)

Density

(ped/m2)

A ≤3.58 ≥ 3.30 ≤ 20 ≥ 1.25 ≤ 0.30

B ≤6.32 ≥ 2.00 ≤ 32 ≥ 1.20 ≤ 0.50

C ≤10.13 ≥ 1.40 ≤ 46 ≥ 1.15 ≤ 0.70

D ≤13.06 ≥ 0.90 ≤ 70 ≥ 1.03 ≤ 1.10

E ≤19.00 ≥ 0.38 ≤ 106 ≥ 0.67 ≤ 2.60

F Over 19.00 < 0.38 > 106 < 0.67 > 2.60

Results – Revised Table for PLOS

Sid

ew

alk

Wid

th (

m)

LOS A LOS B LOS C LOS D LOS E LOS FAccuracy

(%)

Pe

rce

ive

d

KH

CM

Re

vis

ed

Pe

rce

ive

d

KH

CM

Re

vis

ed

Pe

rce

ive

d

KH

CM

Re

vis

ed

Pe

rce

ive

d

KH

CM

Re

vis

ed

Pe

rce

ive

d

KH

CM

Re

vis

ed

Pe

rce

ive

d

KH

CM

Re

vis

ed

KH

CM

Re

vis

ed

2.0 9 7 5 13 11 7 31 9 21 15 5 9 9 4 6 4 1 3 45.7 63.0

3.8 8 6 6 11 5 8 20 8 14 8 3 7 7 2 4 2 0 2 42.9 73.2

4.5 5 3 4 8 5 6 10 4 7 12 6 8 7 3 5 1 1 1 51.2 72.1

6.5 4 3 4 10 4 8 11 3 7 7 3 5 3 1 3 1 0 0 38.9 75.0

Results - Validation

Conclusion

� To encourage more walking trips, the provision of comfortable pedestrian facilities is paramount.

� The PLOS prescribed by the HCM over-estimate the PLOS.

� A new PLOS index is developed that is based on the concept of personal and evasive movements.

� Higher number of evasive movement => lower PLOS

� The new PLOS index is much more accurate in predicting pedestrian perceived level of service.

� The findings from this research provided some useful guidance to engineers to assist them in designing more comfortable pedestrian facilities.

Acknowledgement

Thank You !

Questions ?

Sangyoup KimJaisung ChoiSungkyu Kim

Reference: Kim et al (2014) Personal space, evasive movement and pedestrian level of service,

Journal of Advanced Transportation, 48(6), 673-684