Although fatality and injury numbers have decreased slightly in recent years, pedestrians and bicyclists still face risks on the Nation's roadways. This paper highlights a recent Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) project, Evaluation of Pedestrian and Bicycle Engineering Countermeasures, that was conducted to identify and quantify the effectiveness of medium- to low-cost strategies in improving safety and operations for pedestrians and bicyclists. The findings from this study can help departments of transportation identify cost-effective techniques to implement on their highways and streets to help improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. The FHWA project focused on existing and emerging engineering countermeasures that have not yet been comprehensively evaluated. The countermeasures selected for evaluation were the rectangular rapid-flashing beacon (RRFB); the pedestrian hybrid beacon, formerly called High intensity Activated crossWalK (HAWK); shared lane markings for bicyclists (sharrows); and crosswalk markings as viewed by drivers. The report on evaluation methods developed as part of the FHWA project offers information to traffic engineering practitioners on how to conduct an evaluation of traffic control devices for roadways used by pedestrians and bicyclists. Evaluation methods described in the guide include user surveys or interviews, visibility studies, driving performance studies, observational traffic studies, and crash analyses. The evaluations conducted in the FHWA study exemplify several of the study approaches described in the evaluation methods report and can serve as models for studies that use crash analysis (pedestrian hybrid beacons), traffic observations (RRFB and shared lane markings), and human factors (driver decisions regarding visibility of crosswalk markings). The results of this study will be incorporated into the second versions of FHWA's online guides, Pedestrian Safety Guide and Countermeasure Selection System and Bicycle Countermeasure Selection System. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting