Identification of Determinants of the Speed-Reducing Effect of Pedestrian Refuges in Villages Located on a Chosen Regional Road
Department of road and bridge engineering, West Pomeranian University of Technology Szczecin, 71-311 Szczecin, Poland
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Symmetry 2019, 11(4), 597; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11040597
Received: 3 April 2019 / Revised: 17 April 2019 / Accepted: 19 April 2019 / Published: 25 April 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques for Improvement Sustainability Engineering Processes)
Traffic calming, as a traffic engineering discipline, is becoming an increasingly important aspect of the road engineering process. One of the traffic calming treatments are pedestrian refuges—raised islands located on or at the road centreline. This paper presents factors relevant to the performance of this kind of traffic calming devices retrofitted on the stretches of regional roads in village areas. To this end, speed surveys were carried out before and after the islands in each direction on purposefully chosen test sections. In order to identify the determinants, each test section was characterised by features including the symmetry of the road layout geometry, surrounding features and the existing traffic signs and, last but not least, visibility of the road ahead. The survey data were used by the authors to perform analyses in order to group the speeds at the pedestrian refuges and relate them to specific factors and, finally, identify the determinants of speed reduction. In this way, the authors arrived at a conclusion that the performance of pedestrian refuges depends on a number of factors rather than solely on their geometric parameters. The analyses showed that the pedestrian refuge geometric parameters, features located in its proximity that influence the driver’s perception and placement of appropriate marking, can, in combination, result in achieving the desired speed reduction and ensure safety of non-motorised users. These hypotheses were tested on a stretch of a regional road in village area at three points of the process: before upgrading, after installation of pedestrian refuges, and after retrofitting of enhancements.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Sołowczuk, A.; Kacprzak, D. Identification of Determinants of the Speed-Reducing Effect of Pedestrian Refuges in Villages Located on a Chosen Regional Road. Symmetry 2019, 11, 597. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11040597
AMA Style
Sołowczuk A, Kacprzak D. Identification of Determinants of the Speed-Reducing Effect of Pedestrian Refuges in Villages Located on a Chosen Regional Road. Symmetry. 2019; 11(4):597. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11040597
Chicago/Turabian StyleSołowczuk, Alicja; Kacprzak, Dominik. 2019. "Identification of Determinants of the Speed-Reducing Effect of Pedestrian Refuges in Villages Located on a Chosen Regional Road" Symmetry 11, no. 4: 597. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym11040597
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