Visual contact is one of the indications of interaction between a pedestrian and a motorist. It is also an important function with respect to cognitive information when a visual attention pedestrian prepares to enter a public crosswalk at an urban intersection. This research presents the results of field data collected in Montreal and Toronto in the spring of 2001, which analyzed the behaviour of pedestrians at signalized crosswalks. The results showed that visual contact is more frequent in Montreal than in Toronto having regard to gender and age groups. There were also significant differences in behaviour of pedestrians as they began to cross and during the crossing of intersection. Logistic regression analysis was used with visual contact/no contact as the dependent variable. With regard to the behavioural model there was 1,63 times greater chance in Montreal and 2,12 in Toronto of observing visual contact when the pedestrian did not respect the rules of crossing an intersection. It is significant, however, that in Montreal there is lower probability of observing visual contact when the pedestrian do not cross at a pedestrian crossing. In Toronto there is a higher probability of visual contact if the pedestrian is not strictly observing the rules for crossing the intersection. With regarded to the environmental model a pedestrian in Montreal has more chances of making visual contact when he/she crosses intersections in residential areas, streets with three or more lanes, in the presence of a standard stoplight, and at intersection located on the periphery of the city center. In Toronto, we found the last two environmental variables included in the Montreal model. In addition, the automobile flow appeared in the Toronto model. The discussion underlines the importance of the notion of attention with regard to visual contact between pedestrian and driver in an environmental context. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting