Evaluation of accessible design of public transport facilities

Today, accessibility for transport is an important issue to maintain the sustainability of our society. Laws and regulations order all new transport facilities be accessible, and transport companies are now trying to introduce accessibility into existing facilities. The experience so far teaches us that it is easy to realise an accessible facility when the facility is newly constructed, but it is strenuous and expensive to introduce accessibility into existing facilities, especially large public transport facilities such as underground stations. Under such a difficult situation, a detailed evaluation tool for accessible designs may be of use to the planning/design of the introduction of accessibility. This research intends to develop a new evaluation tool for accessibility. This research assumes that the accessible design in public transport facilities is of benefit not only to elderly or disabled people but also to all people with the diversity. The significance of the proposed model is to focus on benefits of the accessible design to a variety of people including not only elderly and disabled people but also other people. Accessibility in public transport has previously been regarded as an additional service designed specially for those who cannot manage ordinary facilities. This research suggests a new viewpoint that accessibility is not something only for limited people, but for all people. (i.e. Robust people can also easily use low floor buses.) Another significance of this research is to propose a practical evaluation tool based on the proposed model. Moreover, combining research on accessibility for transport with physiological/ occupational research should be recognised as a unique approach

Investigating use of space of pedestrians

Understanding use of space of pedestrian is important to plan/design street environments or large public transport facilities. The purpose of a series of our research is to investigate use of space of various pedestrians in a variety of environmental situations. The research is a part of PAMELA project designed to test existing and proposed pedestrian environments and street facilities (i.e. a bus stop) under controlled conditions. This paper is aimed at setting out the background of the research, and presenting a basic frame work for subsequent research. Strength of our approach is the microscopic heterogeneous approach, where each walking person is regarded different from others. Relations among characteristics of pedestrians, characteristics of facilities/ environments, and resulting actions of pedestrians are carefully examined. Conclusion suggests directions of further research

An explicit study on walking speeds of pedestrians on stairs

23-26 May, 200

Pedestrian vision and collision avoidance behavior: investigation of the information process space of pedestrians using an eye tracker

This study investigates the Information Process Space (IPS) of pedestrians, which has been widely used in microscopic pedestrian movement simulation models. IPS is a conceptual framework to define the spatial extent within which all objects are considered as potential obstacles for each pedestrian when computing where to move next. The particular focus of our study was identifying the size and shape of IPS by examining observed gaze patterns of pedestrians. A series of experiments was conducted in a controlled laboratory environment, in which up to 4 participants walked on a platform at their natural speed. Their gaze patterns were recorded by a head-mounted eye tracker and walking paths by laser-range-scanner–based tracking systems at the frequency of 25Hz. Our findings are threefold: pedestrians pay much more attention to ground surfaces to detect immediate potential environmental hazards than fixating on obstacles; most of their fixations fall within a cone-shape area rather than a semicircle; and the attention paid to approaching pedestrians is not as high as that paid to static obstacles. These results led to an insight that the structure of IPS should be re-examined by researching directional characteristics of pedestrians’ vision

Pedestrian speeds on stairs: an initial step for a simulation model

In order to predict a pedestrian’s walking speed on stairs from his/her characteristics of and those of the stairs, the relationship between the walking speed of a pedestrian on stairs and his/her characteristics, and the relationship between the pedestrians’ walking speeds on stairs and the stair-gradients were investigated. It is suggested that Leg Extensor Power shows a strong correlation to walking speeds of elderly people on stairs, the stair-gradient has a linear relationship with horizontal walking speeds on stairs, and Leg Extensor Power could be used to represent a unique walking speed of an elderly pedestrian on stairs

How do elderly pedestrians perceive hazards in the street? - An initial investigation towards development of a pedestrian simulation that incorporates reaction of various pedestrians to environments

In order to evaluate the accessibility of street and transport environments, such as railway stations, we are now developing a pedestrian simulation that incorporates elderly and disable pedestrians and their interaction with various environments including hazards on the street. For this development, it is necessary to understand how elderly and disabled pedestrians perceive hazards in the street and transport environments. Many elderly people suffer from some visual impairment. A study in the UK suggested 12% of people aged 65 or over have binocular acuity of 6/18 or less (Van der Pols et al, 2000). It should be noted that a quarter of the UK population will be aged 65 or over by 2031 (The Government Actuary's Department, 2004). Because of age-related changes of visual perception organs, elderly people suffer not only visual acuity problems but also other forms of visual disabilities, such as visual field loss and less contrast sensitivity. Lighting is considered to be an effective solution to let elderly and disable pedestrians perceive possible hazards in the street. Interestingly, British Standards for residential street lighting have not considered lighting needs of elderly pedestrians or pedestrians with visual disabilities (e.g. Fujiyama et al, 2005). In order to design street lighting that incorporates elderly and visually disabled pedestrians, it would be useful to understand how lighting improves the perception of hazards by elderly and disable pedestrians. The aim of this paper is to understand how elderly pedestrians perceive different hazards and to address issues to be investigated in future research. This paper focuses on fixation patterns of elderly pedestrians on different hazards in the street under different lighting conditions. Analysing fixation patterns helps us understand how pedestrians perceive environments or hazards (Fujiyama, 2006). This paper presents the initial results of our analysis of the eye tracker data of an ordinary elderly participant

The when and where of an emerging crime type: the example of metal theft from the railway network of Great Britain

Metal theft has become an increasingly common crime in recent years, but lack of data has limited research into it. The present study used police-recorded crime data to study the spatial and temporal concentration of metal theft from the railway network of Great Britain. Metal theft was found to exhibit only weak seasonality, to be concentrated at night and to cluster in a few locations close to – but not in – major cities. Repeat-victimisation risk continued for longer than has been found for other crime types. These and other features appear to point to metal theft being a planned, rather than opportunistic, offence and to the role of scrap-metal dealers as facilitators

Investigation of Lighting Levels for Pedestrians - Some questions about lighting levels of current lighting standards

22-23 September, 200