Critical Gap Analysis Based On Pedestrian Behavior During Peak-Hour Traffic at Unprotected Midblock Crosswalks - Vedgiri 2016

Asian Transport Studies, Volume 4, Issue 1 (2016), 261–277.
© 2016 ATS All rights reserved
Critical Gap Analysis based on Pedestrian Behavior during Peak-Hour

Traffic at Unprotected Midblock Crosswalks
B Raghuram KADALI a*, Vedagiri PERUMAL b
a,b
Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay, Mumbai,400076, India
a
E-mail: raghukadali@civil.iitb.ac.in
b
E-mail: vedagiri@civil.iitb.ac.in
Abstract: Pedestrians’ gap-acceptance behavior is an important process while crossing the

road and pedestrian behavioral characteristics play a major role in gap acceptance. The
existing critical gap-estimation methods (Raff’s method and maximum-likelihood estimation),
have focused on vehicle drivers’ critical gap calculations and these methods do not reflect
pedestrians’ critical gap estimations. The objective of this study is to compare and select the
most suitable method for pedestrians’ critical gap estimation at unprotected midblock
crosswalks. The critical gap estimation considers the effect of pedestrians’ behavioral and
individual characteristics based on a video recording survey at six locations with different
geometric and traffic characteristics in Mumbai, India. The results show that there are
significant differences in the estimated critical gap values with and without considering
pedestrians’ behavioral characteristics. These results would be useful in the evaluation of
unprotected midblock crosswalks and design of new crosswalk facilities.
Keywords: Behavior, Critical gap, Mixed traffic, Unprotected, Raff’s, Logit
1. INTRODUCTION
Walking is an environmentally sustainable mode of transport that is also more flexible. The
vulnerability of pedestrians increases during road-crossing activity because of their greater
interaction with the vehicular traffic flow. Pedestrians are more flexible in their route selection,
and they may use different behavioral characteristics (speed and path change conditions) to
reduce their waiting time while crossing the road. Meanwhile, pedestrian crossing activity
may also have a negative impact on the vehicular flow, which may cause congestion or delays
or increase in the severity of pedestrian–vehicle conflicts. Proper pedestrian facilities can help
in segregation of the vehicular and pedestrian flows by means of grade separation or
signalized crosswalks. However, due to inappropriate crossing locations and design (away
from the bus stops and various land-use facilities such as hospitals, malls, and banks), these
pedestrian facilities may not fulfill pedestrian requirements and may lead to increases in
pedestrian–vehicle interactions at such crosswalk locations. Studies have shown that
improving facilities for motor vehicles substantially increases pedestrian–vehicle interaction
(Khatoon et al., 2013).
Pedestrians usually cross the road at unprotected (nonsignalized) midblock crosswalks
in developing countries such as India because of their higher pedestrian population, longer
waiting time for pedestrians at signalized crossings due to higher traffic density and greater
urgency to reach the various land-use facilities, which may be distant from signalized
crossings. These crosswalks are often simple median openings with or without painted strips
* Corresponding author.
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Kadali, B.R., Perumal, V. / Asian Transport Studies, Volume 4, Issue 1 (2016), 261–277.
or signboards and without signals (Figure 1). Under Indian Road Congress (IRC) policy,
midblock crossings are provided for safe road crossing access to their adjacent land-use
facilities (IRC:103, 2012). Unprotected midblock crosswalk locations are an important hurdle
for pedestrians, which cause greater interaction with vehicular traffic under mixed traffic
conditions. Researchers have shown that 60% of fatalities are related to pedestrians in urban
areas and 85% of fatalities occur at unprotected midblock crosswalks (MOUD, 2008; Mohan
et al., 2009). Pedestrian road-crossing behavior is well explained by gap acceptance theory
and pedestrian quantification of gaps is an important factor in pedestrian facility design. In
their gap acceptance mechanism, pedestrians may reject several inadequate gaps, but some of
these rejected gaps may be accepted by another pedestrian because of differing behavioral
characteristics such as increase in speed and path change conditions. Furthermore, driver yield
behavior also affects pedestrians’ gap acceptance size. It should be noted that the driver yield
behavior in developing countries can be quite different compared with developed countries
because of higher pedestrian density leading to higher pedestrian–vehicle interaction. In
mixed traffic conditions, different vehicles have different speeds and vehicle drivers do not
always drive in the same lane, and may exhibit path change to avoid interaction with
pedestrians, which influences pedestrians’ critical gap estimation. There are also differences in
roadway and pedestrian behavioral characteristics, income levels, pedestrian crowds at
crosswalks in developing and developed countries and these factors further influence
pedestrian speed in crossing roads.
Therefore, changes in pedestrian speed highly influence pedestrians’ critical gap
estimation and their acceptance or rejection of the specific gap may depend on several
external influencing variables. A critical gap can be defined as the time gap that half of the
population may accept and the other half may reject. The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM)
(Transportation Research Board, 2010) defines the critical gap as the minimum time gap in
seconds for a pedestrian to attempt crossing the road. However, some pedestrians may take a
chance to cross the road with a time gap less than the critical gap by using behavioral
characteristics such as increase in speed, rolling behavior, increased number of attempts, or
group behavior at unprotected midblock crosswalks under mixed traffic conditions. Such
behavioral characteristics have a severe effect on pedestrian safety. Most previous studies do
not consider the effect of pedestrian behavioral characteristics on the critical gap. Therefore, it
is essential to consider the effect of behavioral characteristics in evaluating the critical gap.
Location 1 Location 2 Location 3
Location 4 Location 5 Location 6

Figure 1. Selected survey locations
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Pedestrian gap acceptance mechanisms at unprotected midblock and intersection

crosswalks play a major role in the acceptance of a particular gap, which is the time gap
between two vehicles. This gap acceptance mechanism is quite different for the pedestrian and
vehicle driver. Pedestrians may need larger gaps while crossing a higher number of vehicular
lanes (six or eight lane) and larger gaps under mixed traffic are very rare because of a wide
range of vehicles travelling on the same road. Furthermore, the varying speed of different
vehicles in mixed traffic in developing countries may affect significantly the availability of
gaps for pedestrians to cross the road. The increase in waiting time due to these factors may
lead to pedestrians becoming frustrated, which may cause higher pedestrian–vehicle
interaction and hazardous crossing conditions. In addition, two-lane undivided and four-lane
curb-separated roads have higher pedestrian–vehicle interactions because of noncompliant
pedestrian behavior. Pedestrians’ critical gaps may vary significantly because of these
interactions. This increase in pedestrian–vehicle interactions and a significant variation of
critical gaps related to pedestrian behavior was our motivation to study pedestrians’ critical
gap at unprotected midblock crosswalks under mixed traffic conditions.
The objective of this study is to compare and select the most suitable method from a
variety of methods such as HCM, Raff’s method, maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE), and
logit methods for pedestrians’ critical gap estimation at unprotected midblock crosswalks
under mixed traffic conditions. The critical gap estimation considers the effect of pedestrian
behavioral and individual characteristics based on a video recording survey at six locations
with different geometric and traffic characteristics in Mumbai, India. We briefly introduce
critical gap and gap acceptance mechanisms in Section 1. Section 2 describes the background
of pedestrian critical gap-related studies. The data-collection process and pedestrian
behavioral characteristics are presented in Section 3. Section 4 presents the pedestrian critical
gap calculation using various methods. Section 5 discusses the estimated critical gap results
and Section 6 summarizes the conclusions.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Several earlier research studies explored vehicle driver gap acceptance (Polus, 1983; Pant and
Balakrishnan, 1994). Critical gap has been estimated using different methods, such as Raff’s
method (Raff and Hart, 1950; Brilon et al., 1999), MLE (Tian et al., 1999), logit and probit
models (Hamed et al., 1997; Brilon et al., 1999), and advanced techniques using artificial
neural networks (Lyons et al., 2001). Research studies have also been conducted at
roundabouts to estimate critical gaps for vehicle drivers and found that conflicting flow rates
and speed have negative correlations with critical gaps (Xu and Tian, 2008). Another study
concluded that the probability density function of the rejected and accepted gap(s) could be
deduced by introducing the exponential rejected proportion function for critical gap
estimation by using an acceptance and rejection curve (Guo and Lin, 2011). In a recent
research study, three different methods, average central gap, strength-weighted central gap,
and mode central gap (MCG) methods were used with Monte Carlo simulation. The results
concluded that MCG gives the best results (Bunker, 2014). Researchers have found a
significant difference between pedestrians’ and vehicle drivers’ gap acceptance mechanisms
and studies have explored pedestrians’ gap acceptance to estimate the acceptable gap size. The
results found that accepted gap times varied from 3 to 10 sec (Dipietro and King, 1970). The
HCM evaluated critical gap by using pedestrian crossing time and startup time, and it was
assumed that pedestrians do not attempt to cross the road in a time gap less than the critical
gap (Transportation Research Board, 2010). In this method, the startup time indicates
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pedestrians’ decision making to avoid conflict with approaching vehicles while crossing the
road. Researchers have evaluated pedestrians’ gap acceptance by taking the sum of startup
time and pedestrians’ perceived crossing time (Rouphail et al., 2005). Studies have also
explored the importance of pedestrian behavioral characteristics in pedestrian gap acceptance
mechanism. Brewer and colleagues (2006) analyzed the impact of the pedestrian rolling gap
in gap acceptance mechanism by using statistical methods and reported that the accepted gap
varied from 5.3 to 9 sec.
On the one hand, several research studies have explored the effect of age and gender in
gap acceptance with simulated road-crossing techniques (Oxley et al., 1997, 2005; Lobjois
and Cavallo, 2007, 2009). On the other hand, researchers have developed simulation models
to explore pedestrian–vehicle interactions with respect to driver and pedestrian behavior
(Schroeder et al., 2007). Researchers have also explored field-based data for pedestrians’ gap
acceptance at uncontrolled crosswalks and their study results concluded that the probability of
gap acceptance can be accurately predicted by a binary logit model (Sun et al., 2003; Wang et
al., 2010). Studies have analyzed the impact of lag and gap on the pedestrian gap acceptance
mechanism (Schroeder and Rouphail, 2011). Studies have proven the impact of near and far
gap acceptance and concluded that pedestrians more frequently accept the smaller gaps on the
far side compared with the near side. The results also concluded that the accepted gap size
was less than 2 sec (Wilson and Grayson, 1980). Another study discussed the pedestrians’
acceptance of far-side gaps with less than 4.5 sec compared with near-side gaps (Hunt and
Abduljabbar, 1993). In a recent research study, researchers have explored critical gaps on
different roadways and the results concluded that pedestrians’ critical gap decreases with
increase in volume and increases with roadway width (Chandra et al., 2014).
Studies have also explored modeling techniques to estimate pedestrians’ accepted gap
size with roadway, vehicular, and traffic characteristics. These researchers have modeled
pedestrian gap acceptance mechanisms to identify the effect of driver yield behavior on
pedestrians’ accepted gap size and concluded that the accepted gap size significantly reduces
with an increase in driver yield behavior at crosswalk locations (Sun et al., 2003).
Furthermore, earlier studies observed that there is low driver yield behavior with static
signboards, and with increases in driving speed, there are decreases in drivers yielding to
pedestrians (Huang and Cynecki, 2000; Gårder, 2004). Researchers have developed a
lognormal regression model to identify pedestrians’ accepted gap size. Their results show that
pedestrians’ accepted gap size depends on the waiting time and vehicle size (Yannis et al.,
2013). Studies have also explored the effect of pedestrian duration of looking at traffic and
different behavioral effects on pedestrians’ accepted gap size (Kadali and Vedagiri, 2013).
However, studies have rarely explored the effect of pedestrian behavioral characteristics (such
as rolling behavior, speed change) with different techniques such as HCM, Raff’s method,
MLE, and logit models and comparison of the estimated critical gap using these methods
under mixed traffic conditions. These studies are necessary to determine the suitability of
these techniques to estimate accurately the critical gap at crosswalks under mixed traffic
conditions. Therefore, the present study explored the effect of pedestrians’ behavioral
characteristics on critical gaps using different techniques and compared the estimated critical
gap values shown by these existing methods.
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Critical Gap Estimation Methods
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Pedestrians’ critical gap estimation is one of the most important parameters in pedestrians’
gap-acceptance behavior and represents the minimum time interval required for pedestrians to
cross the road. The critical gap is the result of the pedestrian’s decision-making process with
respect to different explanatory variables such as pedestrians’ individual (age and gender),
behavioral (speed change condition and rolling gap), vehicle, and roadway characteristics.
The critical gap cannot be measured directly from field observations, but can be obtained
indirectly by considering different factors. The critical gap can also be estimated by length of
crosswalk and pedestrian speed using the HCM method or collecting the accepted and
rejected gaps of a set of observations with different methods such as Raff’s method, MLE,
and binary logit regression (Brilon et al., 1999). The HCM method has some assumptions
such as pedestrian startup time; therefore, the above-mentioned techniques, including simple
empirical methods (e.g., Raff’s method), were also selected to estimate critical gaps and
further assessment of these methods.
3.1.1 HCM method
The HCM method estimates the critical gap based on the pedestrian’s speed and decision time
for crossing. According to the HCM method, pedestrians’ critical gap is a function of the
crosswalk length, pedestrian crossing speed, and pedestrian startup time, as shown in equation
1 (Transportation Research Board, 2010):
L
tc   ts (1)
Vs
where tc, critical gap for a single pedestrian (seconds); L, crosswalk length in meters; Vs,
pedestrian crossing speed in m/sec; and ts, pedestrian startup time in sec.
The critical gap for the pedestrian group behavior can be calculated by using equation 2,
which represents the distribution of pedestrians in space, i.e., the number of pedestrians in
each row:
L
tG   ts  2( N  1) (2)
Vs
where tG, critical gap for the pedestrian group (in sec) and N, spatial distribution of
pedestrians.
3.1.2 Raff’s method
Raff introduced a macroscopic model for estimating the critical gap of a vehicle driver based
on the probability distribution of accepted and rejected gap data (Brilon et al., 1999). This
method is commonly used for estimating the critical gap because of its simplicity. The critical
gap in this method is estimated by utilizing an empirical distribution function of accepted
gaps Fa(t) and rejected gaps Fr(t) and the relationship is shown in equation 3:
Fa (t )  1  Fr (t ) . (3)
3.1.3 MLE
The MLE technique was developed by Troutbeck (1992). It is assumed that the critical gap
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follows the lognormal distribution. In MLE, two important terms, the accepted gap and
maximum rejected gap, are considered to estimate the critical gap. It is assumed that every
gap smaller than the maximum rejected gap will be rejected by the pedestrian (Brilon et al.,
1999). For instance, if a pedestrian ‘i’ observes an accepted gap ai, and one corresponding
maximum rejected gap ri (the maximum rejected gap is the highest value of all other rejected
gaps). The pedestrian will reject every gap smaller than the critical gap and accept every gap
equal to or higher than the critical gap. The likelihood function can be defined as the
probability that the critical gap distribution is between the observed distribution of accepted
gaps and maximum rejected gaps. By maximizing this function, we can obtain parameters of
the lognormal distribution such as mean  and variance 2 (Troutbeck, 1992):
n
L [F (a )  F (r )]
i 1
i i (4)
where L, maximum-likelihood function; ai, logarithm of the accepted gap of pedestrian i; ri,
logarithm of the rejected gap of pedestrian i; and F(ai), F(ri), cumulative distribution functions
for the normal distribution.
3.1.4 Logit method
The pedestrian’s decision-making condition is described with two alternatives: accept the gap
(i) or reject the gap (j). If we consider the pedestrian decision in particular field situation ‘d,’
the probability of selecting an alternative (accept/reject) is based on a linear function of utility
Uid, which is the combination of deterministic term Vid and a random term id:
Uid = Vid + id (5)

Ujd= Vjd + jd (6)
The deterministic component is the combination of pedestrian, vehicular, traffic, and roadway
characteristics that can be evaluated by objective measurement techniques. The linear
combination of deterministic component is as follows:
Vid =  + 1 Xid1 + 2 Xid2 + 3 Xid3 + ………… + n Xidn (7)

Vjd =  + 1 Xjd1 + 2 Xjd2 + 3 Xjd3 + ………… + n Xjdn (8)
where , 1, 2 … n are parameters; Xidk, value of the kth attribute in particular field situation
d for acceptance case; Xjdk, value of the kth attribute in particular field situation d for rejection
case; and n, number of attributes.
The utility of alternative i (accept or reject) has to be transformed into a probability to
predict whether a particular alternative will be chosen or not. The probability of choosing
alternative ‘I’ is then calculated using the following function:
1
Pi (t )  (9)
1  e   t
where  and  are the parameters need to be estimated from the model.
Then the critical gap has the probability 0.5, which is median of the random variable T.
The maximization of L(, ) will give the values for  and , which is the function of the
266
logistic distribution and the critical gap tc is the mean of the distribution:

tc  (10)

3.2 Site Selection
Six locations were selected in Mumbai for the critical gap estimation and these selected sites
are unprotected (nonsignalized) midblock crosswalks with a variety of roadways, vehicle, and
pedestrian behavioral characteristics including a range of the available gaps. The details of the
chosen sites are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of the selected crosswalks

Total Vehicular Collected accepted
Location Location Width of Length of
number traffic in peak time gap data on
No. name median in m crosswalk in m
of lanes hour in veh/hr. each location
1 Ghatkopar Two 0 7 2879 736
2 Andheri Four 0.45 m curb 6 on each side 5872 286
3 Borivali Four 0.7 7 on each side 4201 944
4 Kurla Four 1.0 6.2 on each side 5582 660
Lower
5 Four 1.0 7 on each side 4691 1100
Parel
10.5 on each
6 Chembur Six 1.0 5258 930
side
3.3 Data Collection
A video recording survey was conducted for a total of 2 to 3 h during morning and evening
peak hours on working days in each selected location. Three cameras were positioned to
capture pedestrians’ gap-acceptance behavior, considering the pedestrians’ behavioral,
roadway, traffic, and vehicular characteristics. Two video cameras were used for collecting the
pedestrians’ behavioral characteristic data and another one for collecting vehicular
characteristics. The video camera for collecting vehicular characteristics was positioned at a
vantage point to capture the vehicle speed and prior to the video survey, a known length was
marked for the vehicle speed data extraction. The aggregated data of pedestrians’ acceptance
and rejection of vehicular gaps comprises 37,670 gap data (the last column in Table 1 shows
only accepted gap data), which were extracted from the six locations.
3.4 Data Extraction
The data was extracted using AVS video editor software, and vehicular gap size data was
extracted with an accuracy of 33 msec (0.033 s) using a step forward option in the software.
Pedestrians’ accepted or rejected gap data corresponding to the individual behavioral and
vehicular characteristics and traffic data were extracted from the video data. Pedestrians’
behavioral characteristics, such as pedestrian speed, path change conditions, and rolling gap
(rolling over the small vehicular gaps), were represented by a dummy set of variables such as
yes or no conditions. The accepted vehicular gap data were extracted with respect to each
individual’s crossing path. Vehicle speeds were extracted by the known marked length (20 m).
The traffic jam flow data were completely neglected in the data-extraction process. The
collected variable descriptions are given in Table 2.
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4. CRITICAL GAP CALCULATION
Critical gaps were calculated based on pedestrians’ accepted and rejected gap data observed in
the field (see Table 1) at six selected locations in Mumbai by using HCM, Raff’s, MLE, and
logit methods. The critical gap was estimated based on the gender, age, and pedestrians’
compliant or noncompliant behavior using HCM, Raff’s, and MLE methods. The aggregate
data for critical gaps at each location were estimated using various explanatory variables with
the logit method.
Table 2. Descriptions of collected variables

Variable type Name of the Variable Description
Gender: Male, Female
Pedestrian
Age: Child <15, Young-aged 16-30, By visual appearance.
demographic
Middle-aged 31-50 and Elders > 50
Whether pedestrian rolls over the available
Pedestrian rolling gap: Yes or No
small gaps.
Whether a pedestrian changes speed while
Pedestrian speed change condition: Yes or No
crossing the road.
Whether a pedestrian changes crossing
Pedestrian path change condition: Yes or No
path while crossing the road.
Pedestrian Pedestrian platoon: Single, Two, Three or more Number of pedestrian in the group.
behavioural Whether pedestrians are crossing in single
Stage of crossing: Single, Two, Three or more
characteristics stage or multiple stages.
How many times pedestrian steps back
Frequency of step backwards
irrespective of the number of attempts.
How many times pedestrian tries to cross
Frequency of attempt
the road.
Concentration on vehicular gaps: Not applicable, Whether pedestrians are concentrating on
Yes or No vehicular gap or not.
Type of vehicle: Two wheeler, Three wheeler, The type of vehicle corresponding to the
Vehicular Car, Heavy vehicle accepted gap.
characteristics The vehicle speed corresponding to the
Vehicle speed
accepted vehicle.
Time gap between two vehicles with
Vehicular gap size in sec
reference to pedestrian crossing path.
Pedestrian delay in sec The overall time spend to cross the road.
Traffic
Whether the pedestrian is accepting the lag
Characteristics Accepted lag or gap: Lag or Gap
(first vehicular gap) or successive gaps.
Whether the gap is close to the curb (near
Type of gap: Near or Far
gap) or median (far gap).
4.1 HCM Method
Pedestrian speed data was extracted for each individual based on gender, age, group, and
compliant or noncompliant behavior. The data is summarized in Table 3. The pedestrian
startup time was assumed as 2 sec based on the field observations. The critical gap was
calculated by using the HCM method (equation 1) based on the pedestrian speed, crosswalk
length, and startup time. The average critical gap results by different factors are summarized
in Table 4. The crosswalk length for each selected location was 7, 6, 7, 6.2, 7, and 10.5 m for
Ghatkopar, Andheri, Borivali, Kurla, Lower Parel, and Chembur, respectively.
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Table 3. Pedestrian speed data with different conditions

Pedestrian average speed in m/sec
Location number 1 2 3 4 5 6
Male 1.18 1.495 1.41 1.22 1.232 1.362
Gender
Female 1.06 1.31 1.26 1.08 1.138 1.24
Child 1.066 1.14 1.36 1.17 1.26 1.15
Young-aged 1.157 1.46 1.466 1.23 1.225 1.42
Age
Middle-aged 1.137 1.388 1.32 1.14 1.19 1.31
Elders 1.02 1.26 1.22 1.08 1.14 1.07
Single 1.21 1.49 1.42 1.22 1.248 1.33
Group 1.04 1.39 1.294 1.14 1.174 1.32
Single Non-Complaint 1.24 1.55 1.533 1.38 1.37 1.64
Group
Single Complaint 1.22 1.32 1.34 1.13 1.166 1.24
Group Non-Complaint 1.1 1.444 1.41 1.14 1.28 1.6
Group Complaint 1.08 1.24 1.26 1.295 1.14 1.26
Complaint 1.15 1.26 1.294 1.13 1.15 1.22
Behaviour
Non-Complaint 1.18 1.49 1.47 1.333 1.33 1.62
Aggregate Total combined data 1.12 1.434 1.351 1.175 1.204 1.22
Table 4. Pedestrian critical gap results based on HCM method

Pedestrian average critical gap in sec.
Male 7.93 6.01 6.96 7.08 7.68 9.71
Gender
Female 8.60 6.58 7.56 7.74 8.15 10.47
Child 8.57 6.84 7.15 7.30 7.56 11.13
Young-aged 8.05 6.11 6.77 7.04 7.71 9.39
Age
Middle-aged 8.16 6.32 7.30 7.44 7.88 10.02
Elders 8.86 6.76 7.74 7.74 8.14 11.81
Single 7.79 6.03 6.93 7.08 7.61 9.89
Group 8.73 6.32 7.41 7.44 7.96 9.95
Group
Group Complaint 8.48 6.84 7.56 6.79 8.14 10.33
Complaint 8.09 6.76 7.41 7.49 8.09 10.61
Behaviour
Non-Complaint 7.93 6.03 6.76 6.65 7.26 8.48
Note: Locations 1: Ghatkopar; 2: Andheri; 3: Borivali; 4: Kurla; 5: Lower Parel; 6: Chembur
4.2 Raff’s Method
In Raff’s method, the cumulative proportions of accepted and rejected gaps were considered
in the critical gap estimation. The sample of cumulative accepted and rejected gaps is shown
in Figure 2. The critical gap is indicated by the meeting point of accepted and rejected gap
curves. Based on this procedure, the average critical gap results were calculated at all
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locations using their different characteristics (e.g., individual behavioral characteristics),

which are shown in Table 5.
1.00
0.95
0.90
0.85
0.80 Rejected probability
0.75
Accumulative probability
Acceptance probability
0.70
0.65 Example: Critical gap=4.9 sec
0.60
0.55
0.50
0.45
0.40
0.35
0.30
0.25
0.20 Critical time gap in sec
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30
Vehicular time gap in seconds
Figure 2. Critical gap of Raff’s method
Table 5. Pedestrian critical gap results based on Raff’s method

Male 2.9 4.05 3.8 3.5 4.25 4.9
Gender
Female 3.1 4.55 4.7 3.9 4.55 5.3
Child 2.7 4.85 5.25 4 4.65 -
Young-aged 2.8 3.65 3.65 3.4 4.05 5.1
Age
Middle-aged 3.1 4.60 4.25 3.5 4.6 5.2
Elders 3.4 4.85 5.15 3.6 4.75 5.5
Single 3.4 4.05 3.85 3.05 4.05 4.8
Group 3.2 4.20 4.45 3.76 4.40 5.4
Group
Group Complaint 3.95 5.05 5.25 5.25 4.60 6.45
Complaint 3.8 5.75 5.15 5.2 4.85 6.2
Behaviour
Non-Complaint 2.5 3.85 3.35 2.8 3.3 4.2
4.3 MLE Method
The probability density and accumulative probability were calculated by using the
NORMDIST function in Microsoft Excel. The logarithms of the accepted gaps were
considered as the preliminary values of mean  and standard variance  and were obtained as
1.69 and 0.29 s, respectively. Then the values  and  were changed corresponding to the
maximization of the logarithm function. The critical gap was calculated according to the 
value. The average critical gap results using different factors are summarized in Table 6.
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Table 6. Pedestrian critical gap results based on MLE method

Male 3.15 4.42 4.31 3.87 4.57 5.61
Gender
Female 3.27 4.64 4.86 4.32 4.71 5.67
Child 2.88 4.69 5.50 4.48 4.38 -
Young-aged 2.96 4.54 3.97 3.82 4.17 5.45
Age
Middle-aged 3.22 4.81 4.38 4.10 4.76 5.66
Elders 3.68 4.86 5.23 4.45 4.88 6.08
Single 3.6 4.33 3.93 3.75 4.23 5.22
Group 3.39 4.60 4.65 4.15 4.65 6.12
Group
Group Complaint 4.01 6.25 5.20 5.2 5.15 7.34
Complaint 3.92 5.91 5.17 5.10 5.19 6.76
Behaviour
Non-Complaint 2.56 3.87 3.94 2.8 3.62 4.18
4.4 Logit Method
Based on the logit model, the critical gap is estimated as the gap for which the probability of
acceptance is equal to 50%. The NLOGIT software package was used for the estimation of the
parameters  and  in the deterministic component (see equations 7 and 8). The coefficients
of each input variable were estimated by using the maximum-likelihood technique and the
critical gap was estimated using equation 9. The deterministic component of the utility
equation (pedestrian crossing opportunities of gap acceptance) and calculated mean critical
gap results for each selected location are summarized in Table 7.
5. DISCUSSION OF ESTIMATED CRITICAL GAP RESULTS
Table 8 summarizes the critical gap values estimated using different methods along with the
mean, 15th percentile, and 85th percentile values of pedestrians’ acceptance of gaps observed
in the field. Table 8 shows that the estimation of pedestrians’ critical gaps using different
methods leads to a wide range of critical gap values and the selection of appropriate critical
gap values influences the effectiveness of the pedestrian design facilities. Hence, the
estimated critical gap using any method should be reliable and comparable with field
observations of accepted gap size in normal conditions. The critical gap estimated by the
HCM method shows higher values than the other methods (Raff’s method and MLE). The
estimated critical gap using the HCM method (see Table 4) is mainly based on pedestrian
speed. However, this method cannot capture the exact field conditions, which were also
influenced by pedestrians’ behavioral characteristics.
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Table 7. Pedestrian Critical Gap Results Based on Logit Method

Gap data
Critical gap
Location (accepted and Utility equation
value in sec
rejected)
U1= -7.57- 0.09*VS + 0.79*FATM + 5.65*PSCC +
Ghatkopar 2326 7.03
1.95*PPCC + 0.63*DYB-2.26*TOG+1.125*Vgap
U1= -7.05- 1.115 * PPS + 0.785 * FATM + 7.05 *
Andheri 4400 8.06
PSCC + 4.28 * Rbeh – 0.084 * VS + 0.733 * Vgap
U1= -8.31 + 0.376 * Gen- 0.324 * PPS + 1.22 * FATM
Borivali 8196 + 1.786 * COG – 0.84 * TOG – 0.067 * WT + 1.14 * 5.8
Vgap
U1= -16.52 - 0.502 * Age + 0.77 * FATM + 2.84 *
Kurla 5394 PPCC + 2.99 * Rbeh + 2.48 * COG – 0.44 * TOG – 8.14
0.021 * WT + 0.864 * Vgap
U1= -5.33 + 0.64 * Gen – 0.57 * Age – 0.135 * PPS +
Lower
8674 0.978 * FATM + 6.07 * Rbeh + 0.98 * COG – 0.05 * 6.5
Parel
VS – 0.403 * TOG – 0.028 * WT + 0.888 * Vgap
U1= -6.14 – 0.552 * Age + 0.911 * FATM + 2.29 *
Chembur 8680 PPCC + 0.33 * COG – 0.02 * VS – 0.842 * TOG – 9.84
0.021 * WT + 0.672 * Vgap
Where: Rbeh: Pedestrian rolling behaviour; PSCC: Pedestrian speed change condition; PPCC: Pedestrian
path change condition; PPS: Pedestrian platoon size; FATM: Frequency of attempt; COG: Concentration on
vehicular gaps; WT: Waiting time; VS: Vehicle speed; Vgap: Vehicular gap size; TOG: Type of gap; Gen:
Pedestrian gender; Age: Pedestrian age; DYB: Driver yield behaviour
Table 8. Summary of Field Accepted Pedestrian Gaps and Estimated Critical Gaps
Field accepted pedestrian gaps in Estimated critical gap in sec
sec using different techniques
Location
15th 85th
Mean HCM Raff’s MLE Logit
Percentile percentile
Ghatkopar 4.87 2.72 7.01 8.25 3.12 3.22 7.03
Andheri 5.61 3.28 5.61 6.18 4.35 4.49 8.06
Borivali 6.44 3.35 9.61 7.18 4.15 5.12 5.8
Kurla 5.86 3.05 8.18 7.28 3.48 4.02 8.14
Lower Parel 4.87 3.04 6.52 7.81 4.35 4.59 6.5
Chembur 7.41 4.38 10.83 10.61 5.1 5.66 9.84
The critical gap estimated by the HCM method for aggregate data (whole sample) at the
Ghatkopar location was close to the critical gap estimated considering only the effects of
gender, young and middle aged groups, and pedestrians’ compliant behavior (see Table 4).
The aggregate data includes all pedestrian behavior (such as rolling and speed change) in
different age groups. The critical gap shows a lower value with pedestrians’ noncompliant
behavior compared with the aggregate data in all six locations (see Tables 4 and 5). These
results show the importance of pedestrians’ behavioral characteristics on gap acceptance
under mixed traffic conditions. It should be noted that the MLE and Raff’s methods utilize the
accepted and maximum rejected gaps in their estimation of critical gaps and the results of
MLE are close to those of Raff’s method (see Table 8). Furthermore, the estimated results
from these two methods show lower values than for the HCM method (see Table 8). In the
analysis using the MLE and Raff methods, female pedestrians had higher critical gap values
than male pedestrians and the elderly have higher critical gap values than the other age groups
(see Tables 5 and 6).
The critical gap for pedestrians’ noncompliant behavior had lower values compared with
pedestrians’ compliant behavior and with the aggregate data set (see Table 6). Table 7 shows
272
that the estimated critical gap using the logit method was highly influenced by pedestrian
behavior (pedestrian speed, path change condition, rolling behavior, frequency of attempts,
and platoon size), traffic (type of gap, waiting time, available gap), and vehicle characteristics
(vehicle speed) (see Table 7). The critical gaps estimated using the logit method results in
higher values than those using Raff’s method and MLE, and lower values than from the HCM
method (except at the Andheri and Kurla locations, where the deviation may be because of the
fewer data points considered at both locations) (see Figure 3(a)). The logit method considered
each rejected gap situation and pedestrian behavior using all rejected gap values can represent
the actual field conditions. Moreover, the percentage of dispersion was calculated as the
difference between pedestrians’ mean accepted gap values from the field condition and the
calculated critical gap using various methods (see Figure 3(b)). The calculated critical gap
values were comparable with field conditions when the mean percentage difference is close to
the zero percentage line shown in Figure 3(b). Furthermore, it was clearly observed that the
calculated critical gap using Raff’s method and MLE shows significant deviation from the
zero percentage line and gives much lower values than using the HCM and logit methods. The
estimated pedestrians’ critical gaps using the HCM method were close to the zero percentage
line. However, the pedestrian startup time (2 sec) was assumed in the HCM method.
Therefore, further examination is required to obtain the field pedestrian startup times.
Moreover, pedestrians’ critical gap estimated using the logit method was close to the zero
percentage line (further examination is required at the Andheri and Kurla locations).
12 60
11 HCM Raff's 50 HCM Raff's MLE LOGIT
10 MLE Logit 40
Percentage of dispersion of each
method from field accepted gap
9 30
20
Critical gap in sec
8
7 10
6 0
5 -10
4 -20
-30
3
-40
2
-50
1
-60
0 -70
Ghatkopar
Kurla
Chembur
Borivali
Lower Parel
Andheri
Ghatkopar
Chembur
Borivali
Lower Parel
Kurla
Andheri
Figure 3(a) Figure 3(b)
Figure 3. Comparison of critical gap values by various methods
Raff’s method and MLE show lower critical gap values if pedestrians are crossing the
road at a normal speed (1.25 m/sec) and the required gap for crossing a six-lane divided
roadway (Chembur) is 8.4 sec in each direction of vehicular flow. Hence, the estimation of the
critical gap by Raff’s method and the MLE results may not show the actual field conditions
for pedestrians’ compliant behavior under multilane roadway conditions. The MLE method
considers only the maximum rejected and accepted gap values, which may not be true under
mixed traffic conditions. For example, a pedestrian may reject a 5.5 sec gap under heavy
vehicle conditions and the same gap may be accepted with smaller vehicles such as an
autorickshaw (three-wheeler vehicle) and motorcycles. Such behavior was observed more
frequently at the Ghatkopar and Borivali locations. Therefore, the estimated pedestrians’
critical gap results using MLE and Raff’s method may not represent actual field conditions
under mixed traffic conditions.
273
Further examination is required at the Andheri and Kurla locations using the HCM and
logit methods by considering the data-set variation during peak and off-peak conditions.
Earlier researchers considered pedestrian safety as pedestrians’ crossing time subtracted from
accepted vehicular gaps (Oxley et al., 1997, 2005; Lobjois and Cavallo, 2007, 2009).
Pedestrian safety while crossing the road was tested with calculated critical gaps using
aggregated data from selected methods and crosswalk crossing time for each location was
calculated based on the aggregated data of pedestrian speed (see Table 3) as well as length of
crosswalk (see Table 1). Figure 4 shows that the HCM method provides a constant safety
threshold value because of the assumption of pedestrian startup time as 2 sec. Raff’s method
and MLE show that pedestrians have negative thresholds at five locations because of their low
critical gap values and location 2 shows positive thresholds. Figure 4 shows that pedestrian
safety thresholds identified with the logit model have reasonable values without any prior
assumptions like the HCM method. The logit method includes several pedestrians’ behavioral
and vehicular characteristics, which may represent the actual field conditions for pedestrian
road-crossing behavior compared with the HCM method (which is completely based on
pedestrian speed).
4.0 HCM Logit Raff's MLE

3.5
3.0
2.5
Pedestrian safety, time in sec
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
-2.5
-3.0
-3.5 Ghatkopar Andheri Borivali Kurla Lower parel Chembur
Type of Location
Figure 4. Comparison of pedestrian safety values by various methods
6. CONCLUSIONS
The present study explored pedestrians’ critical gap estimation based on HCM, Raff’s, MLE,
and logit methods at unprotected midblock crosswalks under mixed traffic conditions. The
study highlights the importance of considering pedestrians’ behavioral characteristics in
critical gap estimation. There is a decrease in critical gap when the pedestrian uses behavioral
characteristics such as rolling behavior or speed-change conditions. The study results show
that pedestrian groups with compliant behavior have higher critical gaps than single
pedestrians with noncompliant behavior. The study results also concluded that the estimated
pedestrians’ critical gap using Raff’s method and MLE shows lower values than the actual
observed field conditions, which required an acceptable gap size for four- and six-lane
divided roadway crosswalk. The estimated critical gap using the HCM method shows a higher
value compared with the other methods because of assumptions of pedestrian startup times.
The present study concludes that the logit method is more suitable for estimation of the
critical gap because it allows estimation of realistic critical gaps by considering the effect of
274
pedestrians’ behavioral characteristics under mixed traffic conditions. The study also
concluded that individual characteristics of pedestrians, such as gender and age, significantly
contribute to critical gaps. Female pedestrians had higher critical gap values compared with
male pedestrians, and elderly had higher critical gap values than did other age groups
(middle-aged and young pedestrian groups) at all chosen locations. Pedestrians’ noncompliant
behavior reduces the critical gap value compared with individual or pedestrian groups’
compliant behavior. The study predicts the pedestrian safety at selected crosswalk locations
with their corresponding calculated critical gaps using various methods under mixed traffic
conditions. The estimated critical gap using the logit method is quite close to the observed
field critical gap values at crosswalks under mixed traffic conditions.
However, the study has some limitations. The calculated critical gap results for all
selected locations were based on 2 to 3 h of data from either morning or evening peak-hour
traffic at each selected crosswalk. The variation of the traffic flow (such as at off-peak times)
were not considered. Pedestrian speeds were calculated for the full crosswalk length (such as
7 and 10.5 m for four- and six-lane roads, respectively) and the data may not represent the
actual pedestrian speed in each 3.5 m lane or each section. In spite of these limitations, the
study delineates an appropriate approach for critical gap estimation by comparing the results
from various methods in different pedestrian situations at unprotected midblock crosswalk
locations under mixed traffic conditions. The present study highlights the importance of
pedestrians’ behavioral characteristics in critical gap analysis, which is important in the
context of developing countries, where behavioral characteristics are frequently used. The
study results may also be useful for more-effective design of pedestrian crosswalk facilities
and operational control measurements for pedestrians.
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Critical Gap Analysis Based On Pedestrian Behavior During Peak-Hour Traffic at Unprotected Midblock Crosswalks - Vedgiri 2016

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Asian Transport Studies, Volume 4, Issue 1 (2016), 261–277.

© 2016 ATS All rights reserved

Critical Gap Analysis based on Pedestrian Behavior during Peak-Hour

Abstract: Pedestrians’ gap-acceptance behavior is an important process while crossing the

Keywords: Behavior, Critical gap, Mixed traffic, Unprotected, Raff’s, Logit

Location 1 Location 2 Location 3

Location 4 Location 5 Location 6

Pedestrian gap acceptance mechanisms at unprotected midblock and intersection

3.1 Critical Gap Estimation Methods

3.1.1 HCM method

3.1.2 Raff’s method

3.1.4 Logit method

Uid = Vid + id (5)

Vid =  + 1 Xid1 + 2 Xid2 + 3 Xid3 + ………… + n Xidn (7)

3.2 Site Selection

Table 1. Summary of the selected crosswalks

3.3 Data Collection

3.4 Data Extraction

4. CRITICAL GAP CALCULATION

Table 2. Descriptions of collected variables

4.1 HCM Method

Table 3. Pedestrian speed data with different conditions

Table 4. Pedestrian critical gap results based on HCM method

4.2 Raff’s Method

locations using their different characteristics (e.g., individual behavioral characteristics),

Figure 2. Critical gap of Raff’s method

Table 5. Pedestrian critical gap results based on Raff’s method

4.3 MLE Method

Table 6. Pedestrian critical gap results based on MLE method

4.4 Logit Method

5. DISCUSSION OF ESTIMATED CRITICAL GAP RESULTS

Table 7. Pedestrian Critical Gap Results Based on Logit Method

Figure 3(a) Figure 3(b)

Figure 3. Comparison of critical gap values by various methods

4.0 HCM Logit Raff's MLE

Figure 4. Comparison of pedestrian safety values by various methods

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