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Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000
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Transportation Research Procedia 48 (2020) 3342–3354
World Conference on Transport Research – WCTR 2019, Mumbai, 26-30 May 2019
A comparative study of pedestrian movement behavior over foot

over bridges under similar land-use type
Arunabha Banerjeea*, Akhilesh Kumar Mauryab
a*
Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Guwahati, Guwahati (Assam) – 781039, India
b
Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Guwahati, Guwahati (Assam) – 781039, India
Abstract
The paper compares pedestrian movement behavior over foot over bridges in four different cities of India under the same land
use type (commercial area). The data was collected at commercial locations on weekdays in the cities of Kolkata, Bengaluru,
Guwahati and New Delhi using videography technique. Radar charts and box plots were used to predict the mean and median
speed of pedestrians based on gender, age and luggage. Probability density functions were also used to understand the speed
variation among the different categories of pedestrians. Moreover, t-test and ANOVA test were performed to understand whether
there existed any significant difference between the different pedestrian categories. Also, macroscopic relationships were plotted
between the speed-flow rate-density. The results of the analysis showed that the overall mean speed of the pedestrians at
Ultadanga (site 1) and ITO (site 4) was more than that at Marathahalli (site 2) and Maligaon (site 3). Also, the male pedestrians
were observed to have higher median walking speeds than females for all four sites. The pedestrians with luggage at all the four
locations had 5-6 m/min higher walking speeds than the ones without luggage, and such an observation was expected to the land
use type of the pedestrian facilities. Moreover, the pedestrians in the age category 23-45 years age had the highest walking speeds
in comparison to the other age groups for all the locations. The observed maximum flow rate and density were also found to be
highest at site 3 in comparison to the other locations.
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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of the World Conference on Transport Research – WCTR 2019
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the World Conference on Transport Research – WCTR 2019
Keywords: Pedestrian; foot over bridge; macroscopic modelling; statistical tests
1. Introduction
In India, the pedestrians are highly exposed to vehicular traffic due to the absence or poorly maintained pedestrian
facilities. The pedestrians are forced to cross at-grade illegally or use the carriageway which leads to interaction
between pedestrians and motorized traffic. World Health Organization, (2015) reported that pedestrians account for
22% vulnerable road user accidents. Similarly, as per N.C.R.B. Report (2015), majority of the pedestrian accidents
took place in Kolkata followed by Faridabad. Mohan et al. (2015) also reported that more than 40% pedestrian
2352-1465 © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
2352-1465 © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
10.1016/j.trpro.2020.08.119
Arunabha Banerjee et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 48 (2020) 3342–3354 3343
2 A. Banerjee, A.K. Maurya/ Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000
fatalities took place in Bengaluru, Kolkata and Delhi. To prevent such calamities and allow pedestrian free and easy
access, grade separation in the form of overpass or underpass is of utmost importance. The Foot over bridges (FOBs)
are such grade separated pedestrian facilities which allow easy access from one side of the road to the other, without
exposing the pedestrians to any safety related issues. Some of the major benefits of providing proper elevated
pedestrian facilities are safety and security to the pedestrians, along with smooth motorized traffic movement
(without any interaction with pedestrians) and also low consumption of air pollution.
Previous studies by Räsänen (2007), Rizati et al. (2013), and Hasan & Napiah (2017), showed that foot over
bridges are structures which have enormous capacity to ensure high safety to the pedestrians. Sabet (2013) and
Sinclair & Zuidgeest (2016) found that even though the facilities were highly competent to ensure safety to the
pedestrians, yet convincing the pedestrians to use such facilities was extremely difficult. Räsänen (2007) found that
factors such as familiarity with the area and time saving were important parameters influencing pedestrians to use
the bridges in Ankara (Turkey). In Dhaka (Bangladesh), pedestrians avoided using FOBs due to poor security and
accessibility, along with the presence of vendors (Das and Barua, 2015). In a study by Rankavat and Tiwari (2016)
in Delhi (India), it was seen the use of the bridges decreased with the increase in age. In Pakistan, Malik et al. (2017)
also found that the presence of beggars and shops at commercial locations made pedestrians insecure and prevented
them from using the facilities.
In India, however these foot over bridges are developed without any prior consideration of the requirement of
such facilities. The bridges are built in locations where they are inaccessible to the pedestrians, are without proper
lifts/ escalators and are devoid of proper security. In order to cope up with the existing conditions and encourage
pedestrians to use the bridges, researchers had suggested that security improvement in the form of CCTVs,
installation of lifts/ escalators and removal of obstructions would encourage pedestrians to use such facilities. The
limited number of studies conducted to understand pedestrian movement behavior over elevated facilities in India,
encourages detailed study in the particular area. Moreover, to encourage better designing and planning of future
FOBs, it is of significantly importance to study such facilities and come up with better design standards. In the
current study, pedestrian movement behavior over different FOBs have been studied and various parameters like
speed, flow rate and density were analyzed for different locations in order to capture the variability between the
cities.
2. Data collection and analysis
The section presents the details of data collection sites and procedure for data collection and data analysis. The last
part of the section presents the main findings of the study.
2.1. Data collection sites
The videograpic survey method was used to capture the pedestrian movement data over two foot over bridges
located in busy commercial locations at Ultadanga (Kolkata), Marathahalli (Bengaluru), Maligaon (Guwahati) and
ITO (New Delhi). The data were collected during peak hours on weekdays for approximately three hours. The video
camera was fixed on a tripod stand at the height of approximately 5m from the ground. The rectangular trap length
was fixed between 10-12m and the effective width for all locations ranged between 1.57-3.4m. The effective width
was calculated after deducting the buffer/ shy away distance from the total width.
The figures 1 (a to d) shows the different locations of data collection at Ultadanga (Kolkata), Marathahalli
(Bengaluru), Maligaon (Guwahati) and ITO (New Delhi).
3344 A. Banerjee,Banerjee
Arunabha A.K. Maurya
et al.//Transportation
Transportation Research
Research Procedia
Procedia 00
48 (2019)
(2020) 000–000
3342–3354 3
a b
3.1m
10.0m
12.0m 3.4m
Fig. 1. (a) Site 1: Ultadanga (Kolkata); (b) Site 2: Marathahalli (Bengaluru).
c d
10.0m 2.60m
1.57m
10.5m
Fig. 1. (c) Site 3: Maligaon (Guwahati); (d) Site 4: ITO (New Delhi).
2.2. Data collection sites
After collecting the peak hour data from the field, the data was processed in the lab using a manual extraction
technique to extract the basic flow parameters (speed, flow rate and density). The flow rate (ped/min/m) was
calculated as the number of pedestrians crossing the entry section of the study area per minute by the effective width
of the trap. The speed was calculated by randomly selecting eight pedestrians per minute and noting their entry and
exit times into the trap area. Then the trap length was divided by the travel time of the pedestrians to get the actual
speed (m/min). Similarly, the density (ped/m2) was calculated by counting the number of pedestrians within a trap
area at every 20 second interval. In one minute three density reading were taken, and then average value of density
was calculated per minute. The pedestrians were categorized based on age (<12, 13-22, 23-45, 46-59, >60), gender
(male/ female) and luggage (with/ without). From the data analyzed, the speed-density and speed-flow rate
relationships were plotted
3. Results of the study
The collected data was analyzed and the data collection details are provided in the following Table 1.
Table 1. Details of sections used for pedestrian data collection in different cities.
Site 1: Ultadanga Site 2: Marathahalli Site 3: Maligaon Site 4: ITO
Details of section
(Kolkata) (Bengaluru) (Guwahati) (New Delhi)
Date of data collection 09.02.2017 13.03.2017 06.10.2016 08.03.2017
Duration (hours) 3 3 3 3
Weather Clear Cloudy Clear Cloudy
Trap length 12.0 10.0 10.5 10.0
Effective width 3.1 3.4 1.57 2.6
Total 1231 1304 1394 863
Male 922 959 942 702
Gender
Female 309 345 452 161
<12 39 18 49 2
13-22 136 184 169 7
Sample size
Age 23-45 740 915 825 549
46-59 266 163 299 259
>60 50 24 52 46
With 790 671 437 561
Luggage
Without 441 687 957 302
The radar with marker plot (Figure 2) discusses about the variation of mean walking speed for all the locations
based on age, gender and luggage.
3346 Arunabha Banerjee et al. / Transportation Research Procedia 48 (2020) 3342–3354
A. Banerjee, A.K. Maurya / Transportation Research Procedia 00 (2019) 000–000 5
Fig. 2. Radar with marker plot for variation of mean walking speed.
The figure 3 shows that the male and female pedestrians at Ultadanga had considerably higher mean walking speed
than their counterparts at Marathahalli and Maligaon, while at ITO the speeds observed were quite similar to
Ultadanga. Based on the age categories, the pedestrians at Ultadanga (Site 1) and ITO (site 4) for all age categories
(except for pedestrians >60 years) had higher mean walking speeds than at sites 2 (Marathahalli) and 3 (Maligaon).
Also, pedestrians at ITO in the age category >60, had considerably higher walking speeds than the other three
locations, and the reason for such an observation could be that the senior citizens in Delhi are more active and
focused towards reaching their destinations quickly in comparison to other cities. Similarly, it could also be seen
that at location 4, the child pedestrians had lowest speed in comparison to other locations and the reason could be
due to the low sample size. At Site 1, pedestrians with luggage had 3-9 m/min higher walking speeds than the other
locations. Similarly, pedestrians without luggage at ITO had 4-12 m/min higher mean speed than the pedestrians
without luggage in the other cities.
Figures 6-8 shows the box and whisker plots for the different pedestrians categories for all the sites. The plots show
the 25th (minimum), 50th (median) and 75th (maximum) percentile speeds along with the Skewness. The Skewness
provides information about the how asymmetric the distribution is, and larger accumulation of lower speed is
indicated by positive Skewness. Also, in a positively skewed distribution, the mode is lower than the median and
mean. Similarly, in a negatively skewed distribution, the mean is lower than the median as very few low scores tend
to shift the mean to the left.
Fig. 3. (a) Gender wise speed variation for all the four locations (S1: Site 1, S2: Site 2, S3: Site 3 and S4: Site 4); (b) Line diagram showing the
quartile ranges, minimum and maximum.
Figure 4 shows that for all the four locations, the male pedestrians have higher median speed than the female
pedestrians. Similarly, the male and female pedestrians at Ultadanga (Site 1) and ITO (Site 4) have higher median
speed than the male and female pedestrians at Marathahalli (Site 2) and Maligaon (Site 3). The reason for higher
observed speed at Kolkata and Delhi could be due to the general tendency of pedestrians in these two cities to walk
at faster pace in order to reach their destinations quickly. It could also be seen that other than female (site 1) and
male (site 2 and site 3) being positively skewed, all other gender distributions were neither negatively nor positively
skewed.
Fig. 4. Luggage wise speed variation for all the four locations (S1: Site 1, S2: Site 2, S3: Site 3 and S4: Site 4).
From Figure 5 it is visible that the pedestrians with luggage had slightly higher median walking speeds than
pedestrians without luggage at all the locations. The reason for such observation could be that the pedestrians at
commercial locations for all the four cities have to tendency to walk at higher speeds with or without luggage. In
case of Skewness, pedestrians only with luggage (site 2) were found to be positively skewed; while pedestrians with
luggage at site 3 and pedestrians without luggage (at sites 3 and 4) were found to be negatively skewed.
Fig. 5. Age wise speed variation for all the four locations (S1: Site 1, S2: Site 2, S3: Site 3 and S4: Site 4).
Figure 5 shows that the pedestrians in the age group of 23-45 years had the highest median speed for all the
locations. Similarly, for all the locations the pedestrians above the age of 60 had the lowest walking speeds in
comparison to the other age groups, which is expected. The pedestrians in the age category 23-45 years (site 2), <12
years (site 3) and >60 years (site 3) were found to be positively skewed. Similarly, pedestrians in the age category
23-45 years (sites 3 and 4), 46-59 years (site 2) and >60 years (sites 1 and 4) were observed to have negative
Skewness. Due to lower sample size, the pedestrians of site 2 (<12 years and >60 years) and site 4 (<12 years and
13-22 years) were not used for the analysis of median speed.
Figures 6-8 indicates the speed variation in the form of probability density function (i.e. a function whose value at
any given sample in the sample space can be inferred as to offer a relative likelihood that the value of random
variable would equal that sample) among pedestrians based on gender, age and luggage for all the four locations.
The figures indicate how the speed varies among the different groups for all the four locations. The x-axis represents
the mean walking speed (in m/min) and the y-axis shows the relative frequency.
Fig. 6. Gender wise speed distribution for all the locations
The Figure 6 shows that the male pedestrians at sites 1 and 2 have quite similar walking behaviour and that their
speed varies between 45-115 m/min, and was higher than that observed at sites 3 and 4. In the case of female
pedestrians, it is evident that at site 3 they had the lowest walking speed, while at sites 1 and 4 they had similar
walking trends.
Fig. 7. Luggage wise speed distribution for all the locations.
Figure 7 shows that for all the locations (other than site 4), the pedestrians with luggage had slightly higher walking
speeds than the ones without the luggage. The reason for such an observation could be that the pedestrians at
commercial locations, in spite of whether they are carrying luggage or not, always tend to walk at higher speeds to
reach their destinations. It was observed that the pedestrians with luggage at all the locations had greater speed than
the ones without luggage by 5-6 m/min, under both lower and higher walking speed ranges.
3350 ArunabhaA.K.
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Mauryaet/al. / Transportation
Transportation Research
Research Procedia
Procedia 48 (2020)
00 (2019) 3342–3354
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Fig. 8. Age wise speed distribution for all the locations.
Figure 8 shows that for age category <12 years, the child pedestrians at site 1 had higher walking speed than the
children at site 3. Similarly, at Ultadanga (site 1), the young pedestrians (13-22 years) walked faster than the
children at Marathahalli (site 2), Maligaon (site 3) and ITO (site 4). The adult pedestrians (23-45 years and 46-59
years) at sites 1 and 4 had similar observed speed variations. It was also observed that in comparison to the senior
citizens (>60 years) at sites 1 and 4, the pedestrians at site 3 had considerably lower walking speeds. The reason
could be that the pedestrians in Kolkata and Bengaluru irrespective of age group always tend to walk faster than the
pedestrians in the Guwahati and Bengaluru. The speed distribution pedestrians in the age group <12 years (at sites 2
and 4), 13-22 years (at site 4) and >60 (site 2) were not plotted due to low sample size (i.e. sample size less than 30).
The next section discusses about the statistical tests which were conducted on the different pedestrian group
categories to understand whether there was a significant difference between the pedestrians. The t-test is a statistical
hypothesis test performed to understand the significance level of the existing differences between two different sets
of data, and is performed when normal distribution is followed by the test statistic. Similarly, ANOVA single factor
test is a statistical test which is similar to t-test and is performed to compare more than two sets of data. Table 2
shows the results of the t-test conducted on the pedestrian groups based on gender and luggage. Similarly, the results
of the ANOVA test on different age groups are shown in Table 3.
Table 2: Results of t-test for pedestrian gender group and luggage group.
Site No. Pedestrian group type t-Statistical value t-Critical value Difference
1 Gender 9.18 1.96 Significant
1 Luggage 5.54 1.96 Significant
4 Luggage 1.84 1.96 Not significant
The results of Table 2 shows that for both the gender and luggage category of pedestrians, the t-Statistical value is
greater than the t-Critical value, and hence significant difference exists between male and female pedestrians for all
the four the locations. Similarly, the pedestrians with and without luggage are also found to have significant
difference for all the four the locations, except at site 4.
Table 3: Results of ANOVA Single Factor test for age group.

Site No. Pedestrian group type F-Statistical value F-Critical value P-value
1 35.64 2.37 0
2 29.12 2.37 0
Age
3 42.53 2.37 0
4 7.69 2.37 0
Table 3 shows that for all the locations, the F-Statistical value is greater than the F-Critical value and the value of P
is less than 0.05. This indicates that at 5% significance level, there exists significant difference between the five
categories (<12, 13-22, 23-45. 46-59 and >60) of pedestrians based on age for all the four locations.
The Figures 9 (a to d) and 10 (a to d), shows the fundamental relationship between speed-density and speed-flow
rate for site 1 (Ultadanga), site 2 (Marathahalli), site 3 (Maligaon) and site 4 (ITO).
a b
c d
Fig. 9. Fundamental relationship between speed and density for (a) Site 1; (b) Site 2; (c) Site 3; (d) Site 4.
a b
c d
Fig. 10. Fundamental relationship between speed and flow rate for (a) Site 1; (b) Site 2; (c) Site 3; (d) Site 4.
From Figures 9 (a to d), it can be perceived that the observed density for locations 2 and 4 was quite low (~0.21
ped/m2), while at site 1 it is 0.30 ped/m2 and is highest at site 3 (~0.80 ped/m2). The highest density observed at site
3 (Maligaon) was because the congestion level was considerably higher at the particular location in comparison to
other locations. Also, the free flow speed at all locations was observed to lie between 88-93 m/min.
Similarly, from Figures 10 (a to d), it is observed that the flow rate is highest at site 3 (~42 ped/min/m), while at
location 1 it is 20 ped/min/m and is lowest at locations 2 and 4 (~14 ped/min/m).
Also, linear speed-density models were fitted to predict the jam densities (2.2, 6.7, 2.1 and 1.75 ped/m2) and
maximum flow rate (44, 122, 43 and 35 ped/min/m) for sites 1 to 4, but were not shown as these may be under/ over
predict as the observed density data lies in very small range only and cannot predict accurately the speed behavior
with increase in density.
4. Conclusions
The data which was collected from Ultadanga (Kolkata), Marathahalli (Bengaluru), Maligaon (Guwahati) and ITO
(New Delhi) using videographic survey technique, was extracted and analyzed in the lab and the following
important conclusions could be drawn:
a) The radar with marker plot (Figure 2), showed that the overall mean speed walking speed of the pedestrians
of different groups at Ultadanga (site 1) and ITO (site 4) was more than the pedestrians at Marathahalli (site
2) and Maligaon (site 3). This shows that the general tendency of the pedestrians in Kolkata and New Delhi
was to walk at higher speed under different age, gender and luggage categories in comparison to the
pedestrians at Bengaluru and Guwahati cities.
b) The male pedestrians were observed to have higher median speed than their female counterparts for all the
four locations (Figure 3a). Also, the male and female pedestrians at Kolkata (site 1) and New Delhi (site 4),
have higher median speed than their counterparts at sites 2 and 3.
c) The difference in speed between pedestrians carrying luggage or not carrying luggage, had had a low
impact on the walking speed of the pedestrians in all the cities, as pedestrians at commercial regions
generally tend to walk with the crowds at similar walking speeds in presence/absence of luggage to reach
their destinations (refer Figure 4 and 7). Also, the pedestrians with luggage at all the sites (other than site 4)
had 5-6 m/min higher speeds, both under low and high walking speed ranges (Figure 7).
d) The pedestrians in the age category of 23-45 years had the highest median speeds in comparison to the
other age categories for all the sites. Such an observation is quite obvious as the foot over bridges are
located in commercial locations, where majority of the pedestrians are expected to be in the age category
23-45 years working professionals and they generally to move at higher walking speeds to commute
between their places of work (refer Figures 5 and 8).
e) The adult pedestrians (age category 23-59 years) for both Ultadanga (site 1) and ITO (site 4) had
considerably higher speeds than the pedestrians in the same age category at sites 2 and 3. The reason for
lower speed at Maligaon could be due to the effect of the lower available walkable width.
f) The result of t-test and ANOVA single factor statistical tests also showed that other than pedestrians with/
without luggage at site 4, there existed significant difference between the different pedestrian categories
based on gender, age and presence/ absence of luggage (refer Tables 2 and 3).
g) The observed density for locations 2 and 4 were quite low (~0.21 ped/m2), while at sites 1 and 3 the
observed density values were 0.30 ped/m2 and 0.80 ped/m2 respectively. The highest observed density at
Maligaon was due to high pedestrian flow and low available walkable width (refer Figure 12 a to d). The
free flow speeds were observed to be between 88-93 ped/min.
h) The highest observed flow rate was at Maligaon (~42 ped/min/m), while lowest was observed at sites 2 and
4 (~14 ped/min/m).
Acknowledgements
This research work was funded by CSIR - Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi under the Supra
Institutional Network Project (SINP) category as part of the 12th Five Year Plan Period (FYP).
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A comparative study of pedestrian movement behavior over foot

2352-1465 © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

2352-1465 © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

2. Data collection and analysis

2.1. Data collection sites

Fig. 1. (a) Site 1: Ultadanga (Kolkata); (b) Site 2: Marathahalli (Bengaluru).

2.2. Data collection sites

3. Results of the study

Fig. 6. Gender wise speed distribution for all the locations

Fig. 7. Luggage wise speed distribution for all the locations.

Fig. 8. Age wise speed distribution for all the locations.

Table 3: Results of ANOVA Single Factor test for age group.

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