Courtesy crossings are elements of the highway, typically provided in more shared
street environments, highlighted with coloured surfacing, marked stripes, a raised
carriageway and/or narrowing of the road. Whilst not providing a formal pedestrian
crossing, they invite pedestrians to cross in a specific place and drivers to let them
cross the road safely, out of courtesy.
The Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation and the Department for
Transport have recently sought more evidence on such schemes; one of the objectives
of this study was to fill this gap.
The study has analysed 1,369 observations of pedestrians crossing the road at 12 Sites
across the UK, including some ‘shared space’ schemes (such as Bexleyheath,
Felixstowe, Poynton, Preston and Swindon). Multilinear regression models have been
developed both at aggregate and disaggregate levels, relating courtesy behaviour to
34 explanatory variables. In addition, a before-after analysis testing the effect of the
introduction of marked stripes at one site has also been undertaken.
This paper presents the results of the models, comments on the statistical significance
of factors such as traffic and pedestrian volumes and composition and site
infrastructure characteristics; and provide recommendations on how to design
courtesy crossings.
The presence of stripes had the most significant impact on driver`s courtesy
behaviour; it was also observed that the legal requirement to give way to pedestrians
at a controlled zebra crossing only affects the pedestrian delay at the crossing. Other
relevant design features positively affecting courtesy include the presence of ramps
and visual narrowings of the road. On the other hand, where traffic flows include
significant numbers of heavy goods vehicles and buses, then vehicles are less likely to
give way to pedestrians
