REDUCING CONFLICTS BETWEEN MOTOR VEHICLES AND PEDESTRIANS: THE SEPARATE AND COMBINED EFFECTS OF PAVEMENT MARKINGS AND A SIGN PROMPT

Huybers, Sherry; Van Houten, Ron; Malenfant, J. E. Louis · 2004 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1901/jaba.2004.37-445

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Summary

This study investigates methods to reduce pedestrian-motor vehicle conflicts at multilane crosswalks with uncontrolled approaches, specifically evaluating the separate and combined effects of pavement markings and sign prompts. Motivated by high rates of urban pedestrian fatalities and the prevalence of "multiple threat crashes"—where yielding vehicles obscure pedestrians from drivers in adjacent lanes—the research aims to identify the most effective and cost-efficient behavioral prompts. The authors hypothesize that prompting motorists to yield farther in advance of crosswalks increases sight distance and safety, but it is unclear which components of existing treatment packages (signs vs. markings) drive these improvements. The research comprised two experiments conducted at crosswalks in Halifax, Nova Scotia, using a multiple baseline across crosswalks design. Experiment 1 evaluated four conditions at four sites: baseline, a white "yield here to pedestrians" sign, a fluorescent yellow-green sign, and the white sign combined with advance yield pavement markings. Experiment 2 evaluated two conditions at two additional sites: baseline, advance yield pavement markings alone, and the markings combined with the white sign. Observers recorded two primary dependent variables: evasion conflicts (instances where drivers braked/swerved or pedestrians jumped to avoid vehicles) and the distance motorists yielded in advance of the crosswalk (specifically whether they stopped more than 3 meters or 6 meters ahead). Data were collected during peak pedestrian activity periods on weekdays. Results from Experiment 1 indicated that the white sign alone reduced conflicts and increased yielding distance at three of the four sites, while the fluorescent yellow-green sign showed no additional benefit over the white sign. However, adding advance yield pavement markings to the white sign produced further significant reductions in conflicts (averaging 1.7% to 3.3% compared to baseline averages of 12.8% to 16.8%) and increased the percentage of drivers yielding more than 3 meters in advance to between 71.5% and 80.5%. Experiment 2 demonstrated that advance yield pavement markings alone were as effective as the combined sign-and-markings treatment. Markings alone reduced conflicts to 5.0% and 5.8% and increased yielding beyond 3 meters to 70.3% and 76.8%, with the addition of the sign providing no further improvement. The study concludes that advance yield pavement markings are the essential component for reducing pedestrian-motor vehicle conflicts and increasing yielding distance, while signs offer little to no additional benefit once markings are present. The authors attribute the superior efficacy of markings to their location in the driver’s direct line of sight, greater visibility distance, and better timing for controlling stopping behavior. These findings suggest that municipalities can achieve significant safety improvements and cost savings by implementing pavement markings without the associated expense of signage, supporting the inclusion of this treatment in traffic control manuals.

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Topics

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• driver vru interaction
• signage environment
• vru facing ehmi