Gap Acceptance of Crossing Pedestrians at Unprotected Mid-Block Crosswalks in Urban Divided Highways

Unprotected mid-block crosswalk is a hazardous location for the pedestrian. To fulfil the crossing action at a mid-block crosswalk in divided highways, the pedestrian must accept two gaps in the two directional flows. The primary objective of this research is to find out whether there exists any significant difference between these two accepted gaps independent of each other. A video footage was collected at an unprotected mid-block crosswalk located in a two-lane two-way divided dual carriageway. The data was extracted using an image processing software. Hypothesis testing was performed. The paired t-test results showed that there is no significant difference between the mean accepted gap values of the two crossing actions. The secondary objective was to develop a gap estimation model for an unprotected crosswalk in a divided highway. The effective gap was selected as the dependent variable to fit the model. Multiple linear regression model was fitted in order to estimate the gap acceptance with pedestrian characteristics and vehicle stream characteristics. Gender, age, crossing point, waiting time, and crossing speed were selected as pedestrian characteristics while vehicle type and lane number were selected as vehicle stream characteristics. R-studio statistical software was used for the model analysis. The regression model was developed with significant variables, gender, and vehicle type. The results showed that, females are accepting a higher gap (12.3 seconds) than males (9.46 seconds) when using crosswalks in divided highways with two lanes under heterogeneous traffic conditions. Considering vehicle type, the highest average accepted gap was for heavy vehicles while the lowest was for motorbikes. The findings of this study can be useful for traffic planning whilst assuring the safety of both the pedestrian and the driver.