In many countries, older pedestrians struggle to cross the road within the standard time allowed. Singapore has recently initiated a “Green Man+” scheme that allows extra walk time for older pedestrians and people with disabilities. When one taps a registered card on a reader, the system will allow 3 to 12 seconds (average 5 seconds) of additional walk time. Although this promising initiative is currently being extended to 500 systems island-wide by 2014, it is unclear whether the extra walk time provided is appropriate. Previous studies on gait characteristics of older pedestrians consider only unloaded walking. In Singapore, many older adults provide care for young children and shop daily for groceries. Thus, there is a need also to consider crossing times when handling a stroller, shop-ping cart, and grocery bags. To facilitate future pedestrian crossing signal development, a pilot study was conducted to assess whether current crossings in Singapore provided suffcient time for pedestrians under various loading conditions and determine additional walk time (if any) required. (Author/publisher)
Abstract