Modeling the Roadside Walking Environment: Pedestrian Level of Service

Abstract

A method is needed to objectively quantify pedestrians’ perception of safety and comfort in the roadside environment. This quantification, or mathematical relationship, would provide a measure of how well roadways accommodate pedestrian travel. Essentially, it would provide a measure of pedestrian level of service (LOS) within a roadway environment. Such a measure of walking conditions would greatly aid in roadway cross-sectional design and would help evaluate and prioritize the needs of existing roadways for sidewalk retrofit construction. Furthermore, the measure can be used to evaluate traffic-calming strategies and streetscape designs for their effectiveness in improving the pedestrian environment. Such a measure would make it possible to merge pedestrian facility programming into the mainstream of transportation planning, design, and construction. To meet the need for such a method, as well as to fulfill a state mandate to establish levels of service standards for all transportation modes, the Florida Department of Transportation sponsored the development of the Pedestrian LOS Model. The model was developed through a stepwise multivariable regression analysis of 1,250 observations from an event that placed 75 people on a roadway walking course in the Pensacola, Florida, metropolitan area. The Pedestrian LOS Model incorporates the statistically significant roadway and traffic variables that describe pedestrians’ perception of safety or comfort in the roadway environment between intersections. It is similar in approach to methods used to assess automobile operators’ level of service established in the Highway Capacity Manual.