Pedestrian Safety on Crosswalks in India - Need of the Hour

A paradigm shift has been observed from ‘moving of vehicles’ to ‘moving of persons’ while planning for transportation facilities in cities. Provision of integrated and barrier free pedestrian facilities is essential to ensure inclusive mobility. Pedestrian facilities are a critical component in producing a pedestrianfriendly environment. In India, the present facilities provided for the pedestrians are not efficient in general and crosswalks (zebra crossings) in particular. The pedestrian casualties in India have registered an increase of 11.7 percent in the year 2017, of which 31 percent have occurred on crosswalks. Therefore, an attempt has been made to overview the level of safety provided on the crosswalks. It has been found that majority of crosswalks are not fulfilling their intended purposes due to improper signage and markings, inadequate maintenance and bad surface condition. Another significant reason hampering the safety of pedestrians at crosswalks has been found to be inappropriate provision of guardrails and pedestrian refuge islands. Hence, some measures have been suggested to augment the pedestrian safety on the crosswalks

Modelling the Pedestrian Speed at Signalised Intersection Crosswalks for Heterogeneous Traffic Conditions

Pedestrian crossing speed is the key element in the design of pedestrian facilities. It depends on various attributes related to road, traffic and pedestrians. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the variation, examine the influencing factors and formulate a model for the pedestrian crossing speed at signalised intersection crosswalks. The data have been collected using video graphic technique at 16 signalised crosswalks of the Chandigarh city. The findings reveal that a 15th percentile crossing speed (1.11-1.31 m/s) exceeds the design crossing speed of 0.95 m/s. It is also higher than the crossing speed of 1.2 m/s, usually being prescribed and adopted in the developed countries. The statistical analysis indicates no significant difference in the percentile crossing speeds between males and females. However, the variation exists among different age groups, group sizes, and crossing patterns. The correlation analysis depicts that the pedestrian crossing speed has significant negative correlation with the crosswalk width, the crosswalk length, the width of the pedestrian island, the classification of road, average traffic flow and average pedestrian delay, whereas the availability of separate bicycle paths at intersections is positively correlated. Furthermore, the stepwise regression model with 70.1 percent accuracy reveals that the crosswalk width, the width of the pedestrian island and the average pedestrian delay play a predominant role in determining the pedestrian crossing speed. The authors propose the usage of the developed model for setting out the standards for the appropriate design crossing speed for different crosswalks having similar geometric and traffic conditions as that of the study area.</p

Pragmatic Modeling of Pedestrian Jay walking Behaviour at Signalised Intersections in Urban Area

620-632In developing countries, people often jaywalk and indulge in irregular/illicit crossing at signalised crossings which leads to an exponential increase in odds of fatal accidents. This in turn reduces the service quality of signalised crosswalks. Hence, an observational and field study have been undertaken to analyse and model the pedestrian jaywalking behaviour at prominent signalised intersections in an urban Indian city. The authors have collected pedestrian, flow, geometric and crosswalk characteristics using the video-graphic technique followed by the statistical techniques (Multi-Correlation and Exploratory Factor Analysis). The results specify 7 principal factors (socio-demographics, crossing pattern, arrival attributes, road features, dimensions, physical attributes and flow physiognomies) of the pedestrian jaywalking index. Further, binary logit model has identified 7 significant variables namely gender, crossing pattern, type of signal at arrival, number of lanes, width of crosswalk, presence of guard rails and average pedestrian delay in determining the probability of pedestrian jaywalking with 90.39% success rate. Moreover, the area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (0.891) directs an excellent level of discrimination. The authors suggest to use the developed model by the transport professionals in the evaluation of pedestrian jaywalking behaviour and dealing with safety issues at signalised crosswalks; thus, improving the LOS

Thermochemical Studies on Ternary Systems: Part I-Enthalpies of Mixing of Polyoxyethylene Glycols in Aqueous Dioxane & Ethyl Alcohol

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Comparative Analysis and EST Mining Reveals High Degree of Conservation among Five Brassicaceae Species

Brassicaceae is an important family of the plant kingdom which includes several plants of major economic importance. The Brassica spp. and Arabidopsis share much-conserved colinearity between their genomes which can be exploited for the genomic research in Brassicaceae crops. In this study, 131,286 ESTs of five Brassicaceae species were assembled into unigene contigs and compared with Arabidopsis gene indices. Almost all the unigenes of Brassicaceae species showed high similarities with Arabidopsis genes except those of B. napus, where 90% of unigenes were found similar. A total of 9,699 SSRs were identified in the unigenes. PCR primers were designed based on this information and amplified across species for validation. Functional annotation of unigenes showed that the majority of the genes are present in metabolism and energy functional classes. It is expected that comparative genome analysis between Arabidopsis and related crop species will expedite research in the more complex Brassica genomes. This would be helpful for genomics as well as evolutionary studies, and DNA markers developed can be used for mapping, tagging, and cloning of important genes in Brassicaceae

Pragmatic Modeling of Pedestrian Jay walking Behaviour at SignalisedIntersections in Urban Area

In developing countries, people often jaywalk and indulge in irregular/illicit crossing at signalised crossings which leads toan exponential increase in odds of fatal accidents. This in turn reduces the service quality of signalised crosswalks. Hence, anobservational and field study have been undertaken to analyse and model the pedestrian jaywalking behaviour at prominentsignalised intersections in an urban Indian city. The authors have collected pedestrian, flow, geometric and crosswalkcharacteristics using the video-graphic technique followed by the statistical techniques (Multi-Correlation and ExploratoryFactor Analysis). The results specify 7 principal factors (socio-demographics, crossing pattern, arrival attributes, road features,dimensions, physical attributes and flow physiognomies) of the pedestrian jaywalking index. Further, binary logit model hasidentified 7 significant variables namely gender, crossing pattern, type of signal at arrival, number of lanes, width of crosswalk,presence of guard rails and average pedestrian delay in determining the probability of pedestrian jaywalking with 90.39%success rate. Moreover, the area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (0.891) directs an excellent level ofdiscrimination. The authors suggest to use the developed model by the transport professionals in the evaluation of pedestrianjaywalking behaviour and dealing with safety issues at signalised crosswalks; thus, improving the LOS

A Cadaveric Study of Different Angles of Scapula and Their Role in its Kinesiometrics and Muscle Morphology

Introduction: The bipedal gait and consequential freedom of the upper limb in human beings has made the movements of the shoulder joint a subject of extensive investigations. The scapular angles provide the base and leverage to various muscles and have been correlated with the different movements of the shoulder joint. Methods: In the present study, different angles of scapula namely superior, inferior, lateral, medial, acromial and coracoid angles were measured in the North Indian population. The study was conducted on 100 scapulas (R:L = 50:50) obtained from Department of Anatomy, Government Medical College, Amritsar. For measuring the angles, centimetre scales and protractor were used. Results: The mean value of superior angle was observed to be 100.830 (R=100.320 : L=101.340) ; inferior angle was 63.620 (R=68.10 : L=59.140) ; lateral angle was 61.720 (R=65.90 : L=57.540) ; medial angle was 147.640 (R=151.320 : L=143.960) ; acromial angle was 106.470 (R=107.680 : L=105.260) and coracoid angle was 83.30 (R=84.240 : L=82.020). Conclusions: It was observed that all angles were higher in the right sided bones except superior angle. Also a wide range was seen in all the angles. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Keywords: acromial; coracoid; inferior; medial; superior. ______________________________________________________________________________________

Formic Acid Solvent System: Part IV - Behaviour of Electrolytes in Formic Acid

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