Abstract:
A study has been made on the effectiveness of pedestrian
Overpasses in the Dhaka Metropolitan area. On this aspect,
the pedestrian overpasses at Farmgate and at Zia-International
Airport were investigated. This research includes both the
field investigations and data analyses. The field investigation
includes site surveys, pedestrian volume counts, pedestrian
interviews at each of the overpasses.
Based on the collected data, the selected pedestrian
overpasses are analysed to evaluate the effectiveness in terms
of their usage. The percentage of pedestrian using overpass,
zebra crossing and violators were determined. At Farmgate,
it was found that about 50 percent are using the overpass,
37 percent using the zebra crossing and the remaining 13 p~rcent
are crossing illegally. At Zia-International Airport, about
53 percent are using overpass and the remaining 47 percent
are crossing illegally. The pedestr ian interview data were
collected and analysed to find out the causes of not-using
the existing overpasses. Some of the reasons for not-using
the overpasses were difficult to climb-up (23%), overpass
were too high (22%), and too far from the pedestrian travel
route (17%). These data were also analysed to see the pedestrian
distribution for different causes like pedestrian preference,
occupation, age group etc. The actual peak hour volume was compared with the design
capacity for the present and the future conditions. It was
found that at Farmgate, the facility would experience sporadic
and unstable condition after 20 years.
Due to limitations of time, it is not possible to focus
on all aspects of pedestrian travel in detail. In order to
get a more detailed and comprehensive results, a long term
pedestrian research programme may be contemplated in the future.
