Abstract:
Dhaka is one the most densely populated cities of the world. Here huge pedestrian gather
in roads and intersections. At presents pedestrian crossing is one of the greatest
challenges for the traffic and safety engineering communities. Present study deals with
pedestrian crossing behavior at signalized intersections and mid block sections in Dhaka
city. To carry out the analysis at first number of intersections were collected from DCC
and then survey were conducted to find out the existing pedestrian crossing facilities at
near about 70 signalized intersections in Dhaka city. The study reveals that in Dhaka city
area the generalized situation of pedestrian facilities are very poor. It signifies that about
70% intersections have no visible cross marking and about 73% intersections have no
foot over bridges and underpasses.
Six important intersections were selected to count the amount of pedestrian crossing at
peak period namely Shahbag, Banglamotor, Sonargaon, Maghbazar, Elephant road and
Newmarket intersection. In this survey, direction wise amount of pedestrian crossing,
number of pedestrian crossing with foot over bridge and number of legal and illegal
crossing were collected. Pedestrian crossing behaviors were also observed at 6 selected
intersections namely Shahbag Banglamotor, Sonargaon, Maghbazar, Elephant road and
New market. Pedestrian crossing rate at these intersections is about 5000 to 7000 per
hour at peak period and average 15% to 25% illegal crossing occurs at those
intersections. Categorized Pedestrian crossing behaviors are collected from video record
survey for three intersections namely Shahbag, Sonargaon and Newmarket which are
different from different intersections. From the study it is observed that pedestrians are
not willing to use grade separated crossing because it is time consuming and it consists
physical labour. For doing this type of crossing they can take risky crossing. But in some
intersections at grade crossing becomes very risky because of its high traffic volume and
high vehicle speed. But pedestrians always prefer at grade crossing for this reason at
grade pedestrian crossing facilities should be improved by different type of latest
technologies. One of the latest pedestrian crossing technologies is exclusive pedestrian phase (EPP) or
pedestrian scramble at signalized intersections in Dhaka city where possible. Pedestrian
scramble signal has potential to reduce pedestrian-vehicle conflicts at urban signalized
intersections with high volumes of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. In this study three
signalized intersections were selected to incorporate exclusive pedestrian phase and
evaluate it by delay parameter. The selected intersections are Newmarket, Shahbag and
Sonargaon intersections of Dhaka City. It is based on the assumptions that if there is no
pedestrians in the intersection during the vehicular signal phase, vehicular traffic would
flow more smoothly. Introducing EPP in this study is based on the hypothesis that an
additional pedestrian phase has a positive correlation to increase efficiency of the
intersection.
