Pedestrian safety at signalised junctions

In spite of an excellent vehicle accident rate and casualty record, the United Kingdom has been regarded as having a poor record on pedestrian accident rates in relation to other comparable Western countries. A significant proportion of pedestrian accidents occur at signalised junctions, where the conflict between vehicles and pedestrians is high. TRL has been commissioned, by the DETR, to investigate how pedestrians behave at traffic signals, to relate geometric and control aspects of current traffic signal layouts to accident records, and to attempt to identify features leading to safe/unsafe operation. Measures which include improved pedestrian crossing facilities and altered road markings are studied. It is hoped to reduce vehicle speed through junctions without reducing saturation flow, to increase the proportion of pedestrians using the crossing facilities correctly, and to increase the distance between pedestrians and vehicles.