Scholarly record

TRAFFIC FLOW CONDITIONS AT PEDESTRIAN REFUGES LOCATED ON REGIONAL ROAD SECTIONS IN VILLAGE AREAS

A. Sołowczuk

Abstract

There are a number of traffic calming measures that can be employed to protect vulnerable road users (VRU). Traffic calming is of critical importance in small towns and villages crossed by regional roads where it is necessary to resolve a number of conflicting traffic-related interests on stretch of a road that is just 500 m to 1,200 m long. Pedestrian refuges are one of the most common measures used to protect vulnerable road users. Considering the statutory speed limit of 50 km/h applying in daytime to all roads in built-up areas in Poland the authors chose a number of villages crossed by regional roads for speed surveys at locations upstream and downstream of recently installed pedestrian refuges. The surveys were conducted on a dry weekday in free and stable traffic flow on dry pavement surface. In the majority of cases the values of speed parameters, i.e. the 85th percentile speed v85, and average free-flow and stable-flow speeds exceeded the speed limit in built-up areas in Poland. The pedestrian refuges chosen for the study varied in terms of the platform width, taper length (P-21 and P-7b hatched pavement markings) and, last but foremost, siting along the road stretch. One of the pedestrian refuges under scrutiny had a form of a 2.5 m wide island situated on one side of the road centreline, while another one had a non-typical design, imposing non-symmetrical deflections of the lane by 1 m in one direction and by 3 m in the other. In this case the size of the taper (the hatched markings area) was different in each traffic lane. The pedestrian refuges were sited in different sections of the stretch of the regional route crossing the village, i.e. in the entry zone, at the end of entry zone and beginning of the village centre area, in the village centre area and in the exit zone. The analysis of the survey data demonstrated that the pedestrian refuge width and the resulting lateral shift of the road lane had little effect on the vehicular speed and on the reduction of speed along the pedestrian refuges. The speed survey results indicated also that pedestrian refuges had no significant effect on the reduction of the speed of vehicles travelling in their immediate vicinity. Lower speeds before pedestrian refuges were recorded in sites with residential buildings visible in the immediate vicinity of the pedestrian refuge with the greatest speed reductions noted for vehicles passing the pedestrian refuge sited at the village entry/ central zone boundary.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/6.2/s27.074

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