Characteristics of pedestrians in the central business district of colombo, sri lanka, are described. The characteristics measured included walking speed, flow, and density for sidewalks of varying widths. Coparisons are made with results from calgary, canada, and from other asian studies. The findings indicate that asian speeds for all groups are significantly lower than those observed in calgary, canada. Implications of the findings with respect to the technological transfer of pedestrian planning techniques between the two countries are also discussed. The differences in pedestrian characteristicsare caused not only by differences in speed, flow, and density relationships, but also by cultural differences. Problems common to bothcountries are lack of pedestrian data and difficulties involved in collecting pedestrian data. Suggestions concerning low-cost methods of updating pedestrian count data are provided. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1294, Nonmotorized transportation 1991 .
Abstract