Improving Pedestrian Movements in Congested Urban Areas

Pedestrians are one of the main components of the urban traffic environment. Improved corridors for vehicle movements, but the lack of pedestrian facilities are indifferent identifications of a conventional urban setting. Unplanned and uncontrolled pedestrian movements result in delays and safety risks at town centers. Often, there are lots of public requests for a proper network of pedestrian pathways including amenity development. However, it is very difficult to plan and design an efficient pedestrian network without understanding pedestrian movement behavior in such a vicinity. This study is focused on developing a methodology to identify pedestrian movement behavior in critical areas and make necessary adoptions to develop such facilities to encourage a walkable city environment. Pedestrian movement has a high degree of freedom in selecting Origin–Destination pair than any mode of transportation. Household or occupational purpose utility-related trips are commonly identified in such urban environment and it directly relates to the land use pattern of a town area. This study identifies specific land uses that serve as trip generators or attractors, generated pedestrian trips, and potential pedestrian paths within an urban territory. Collecting vehicle speed data using Google Maps to identify the heavy use crosswalks, data verification using field surveys, and developing a GIS-based land use model with pedestrian paths are also under the framework of the study. Shortest path Origin–Destination matrix development for pedestrian networks is one objective of this study. According to the OD matrix, the frequency of sidewalk or crosswalk usage in each OD pair is counted and ranked. A prioritized list is prepared according to the rank and level of interacting traffic.