This research investigates the travel paths of pedestrians along residential frontage roads in the immediate vicinity of bus stops. This investigation was performed to characterize association between seasonality, age, gender, physical impairments and travel path selection. For the purposes of this research, a pedestrian travel path is defined as the physical route chosen by transit users on their walking journey immediately before boarding or after alighting the transit bus, along residential frontage roads in the immediate vicinity of bus stops. A study site screening process that encompassed multiple site visits, Automated Passenger Counting / Automatic Vehicle Location and Geographic Information Systems data analyses identified four study sites (with two bus stops each). At these sites, unaware bus stop users were observed and their travel paths were classified into one of three categories: (a) pedestrian walking on the frontage road; (b) pedestrian walking on the outer separation; or (c) pedestrian walking on the main road. The required sample was collected during eight months, and was divided into ‘no-snow’ and ‘snow’ seasons. After performing statistical tests of association to the travel path selections of bus stop users, the research found that seasonal effects are statistically significant, indicating that there is a higher number of people walking on the main road during the ‘snow’ season. There was also a statistically significant difference in pedestrian path choices regarding site characteristics. When comparing the study sites, the only site that provided a splash strip was found to have a significantly higher amount of people walking along the outer separation, where the splash strip is provided, and which is used by pedestrians as a sidewalk. This finding indicates that if pedestrian facilities were provided along outer separations, they may have an impact on the path chosen by pedestrians when traversing frontage roads. There was not enough evidence to find a statistically significant relationship between pedestrian walking paths and gender, age or ambulatory capabilities.

This research investigates the travel paths of pedestrians along residential frontage roads in the immediate vicinity of bus stops. This investigation was performed to characterize association between seasonality, age, gender, physical impairments and travel path selection. For the purposes of this research, a pedestrian travel path is defined as the physical route chosen by transit users on their walking journey immediately before boarding or after alighting the transit bus, along residential frontage roads in the immediate vicinity of bus stops. A study site screening process that encompassed multiple site visits, Automated Passenger Counting / Automatic Vehicle Location and Geographic Information Systems data analyses identified four study sites (with two bus stops each). At these sites, unaware bus stop users were observed and their travel paths were classified into one of three categories: (a) pedestrian walking on the frontage road; (b) pedestrian walking on the outer separation; or (c) pedestrian walking on the main road. The required sample was collected during eight months, and was divided into ‘no-snow’ and ‘snow’ seasons. After performing statistical tests of association to the travel path selections of bus stop users, the research found that seasonal effects are statistically significant, indicating that there is a higher number of people walking on the main road during the ‘snow’ season. There was also a statistically significant difference in pedestrian path choices regarding site characteristics. When comparing the study sites, the only site that provided a splash strip was found to have a significantly higher amount of people walking along the outer separation, where the splash strip is provided, and which is used by pedestrians as a sidewalk. This finding indicates that if pedestrian facilities were provided along outer separations, they may have an impact on the path chosen by pedestrians when traversing frontage roads. There was not enough evidence to find a statistically significant relationship between pedestrian walking paths and gender, age or ambulatory capabilities.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM-2010) indicates in Volume III (Chapter 17) how the characteristics of the environment can represent obstacles that influence the determination of the average pedestrian space. However, the HCM does not specifically analyse in detail how these obstacles affect specifically the path, speed and average walking time of pedestrian. This article performs a comparative analysis between two microsimulations models where it is evidence how by not considering the characteristics of the fixed and mobile environment, the transhipment time and the speed of people are modified. As a case study, the obstacles present in the environment during the transhipment carried out by users in an integrated multimodal transport system in the city of Lima are identified. The comparative analysis between both cases shows the influence of the characteristics of the environment of the transhipment and variation in the average speed of the pedestrians. The proposed study methodology is calibrated and validated by microsimulations in Vissim Software. The comparative analysis reflects an increase in the transhipment time of 19.4% and a decrease in the average speed of the pedestrians by 14.8 %, reflecting in the microsimulation model values near to the real behaviour of pedestrians.

Indian cities are currently facing various transportation issues like congestion, pollution, urban inequity, high fatality rate due to accidents etc. because of an increase in the ownership of private motor vehicles and their usage. This has prompted many policy makers to search for alternate modal options that are more sustainable than motorized modes. Non Motorized Transport (NMT), which includes mainly walking and cycling in an urban context, do not produce many of the issues associated with motorized modes like congestion, pollution, fatal accidents etc. But, promotion of NMT requires a clear-cut planning strategy, with a lucid understanding of various strategies and their effect on the NMT usage. Present study tries to answer certain pertinent questions, particularly with respect to walking and cycling, which can arise while preparing a plan for promoting NMT in Indian cities. The following are the questions that the author seeks to answer in the present study. 1) Which are the areas inside a city that a planner shall target for promotion of NMT?2) Where shall a planner locate the infrastructures for NMT in these areas?3) What may be the possible impacts of providing these NMT facilities?4) What may be the possible effect of built environment factors on the choice of NMT? Providing NMT infrastructures requires knowledge of location characteristics such as the trip distance of NMT. Present study tries to elicit the existing distance characteristics of walking and cycling in terms of an acceptable trip distance. The household travel data of Bangalore city, for the year 2009, are used in the study. First, a description and a statistical analysis of the walking and cycling trip distances across the subcategories of socio-demographic and regional factors is done. Secondly, the acceptable distance is computed from the cumulative trip length distribution based on the results of the statistical analysis. The socio-demographic and regional factors used in the study include purpose, age, gender, educational level, occupational status, and motor vehicle ownership. The major results include a significant difference between the mean trip distances on foot for the subcategories of variables such as gender (z value, 4.94), whether the respondent owned a private vehicle (z value, -21.2), and whether the trip was made inside the Central Business District (CBD) (z value, -3.93). One of the major implications of this study pertains to requirement of a footpath around main activity centers like bus stations, at least up to a distance of 1385 meters (maximum value for walking as the main mode) and around the bus stops, at least up to a distance of 750 meters (maximum value for walking as the access mode). Next, the present study analyzes the influence of built environment factors –density and diversity -on the mode choice and trip distance of the residents in the Bangalore city. The built environment factors are analyzed, for their marginal effects in the presence of various socio-demographic and alternative attributes, for the two segments -respondents owning at least a personal vehicle and respondents not owning any personal vehicle. The density used is the total density, which was the sum of population density in a zone and employment density in a zone. The diversity index, which was an explainer of the land-use mixture, was set such that, when a zone with small area had employment opportunities comparable with its population, the diversity index would be high. When tested on a holdout sample other than the ones used in the estimation of the mode choice model, for the vehicle-owning group, the model estimated produced a validation accuracy of 93% and 91% respectively for two-wheelers and walking. For the vehicle non-owning group, the prediction success rate was highest for walking (97%), and lowest for public transit (84%). For the vehicle non-owning group, an increase in the density increased the trip distance (parameter values of 0.016 for total density at origin and 0.002 for total density at destination) and decreased the NMT usage (parameter values of -0.036 and 0.038 respectively for cycling and walking for total density at origin, and -0.092 and 0.073 respectively for cycling and walking for total density at destination), but for the vehicle-owning group, the inverse was true. The results for the vehicle non-owning group highlighted the requirement of a policy framework to control the employment and housing location of them in order to reduce their trip distance. In the mode choice model for the personal vehicle-owning group, the similarity between the parameters of the built environment factors across the two-wheeler and NMT reflected the need for adopting policies that would change the attitude of people towards NMT. Also, the trip distance model determined that females preferred a shorter working distance, with a parameter value -0.109 for the vehicle-owning group and -0.04 for the vehicle non-owning group, when compared with males. Lastly, the study develops a methodological framework to determine the sustainability impact on providing NMT infrastructures using a Composite Sustainability Index (CSI). More specifically, the study develops a methodological framework to determine the variation in the CSI on providing NMT -walking and cycling – infrastructure. The methodology establishes a link between the proposed NMT infrastructures and the CSI using two explanatory indicators: 1) number of motorized vehicles and 2) vehicle-kilometers travelled by the motorized modes. The main components of the framework include the estimation of a mode choice model for a study area, calculation of the explanatory indicators for the scenarios before and after providing NMT infrastructures, and determination of the sustainability impact. The proposed framework, along with the acceptable distance determined in the earlier step, is then used to determine the sustainability impact on providing NMT facilities, for a future scenario, inside the CBD of Bangalore and around the bus stops carrying trips to the CBD. Three case studies are presented with the first one considering only intra zonal (CBD) trips, the second one considering only inter zonal trips having CBD as destination, and the third one considering both above mentioned the trips. The results of all the three case studies found an increase in the CSI (0.002 for the first case study, 0.076 for the second case study, and 0.100 for the third case study) for the peak-hour trips inside the CBD, on providing NMT infrastructures. This increase showed an improvement in the sustainability. Further, for the case study 1, which consisted of high percentage of short distance trips, the major beneficiaries of the NMT infrastructures were the low-income group. There was a reduction in public transport trips, of which the main contributors were the low-income group, from 142706.2 to 96410.2.

Qu’ils soient voyageurs occasionnels ou réguliers, les piétons se déplaçant en environnement urbain et en transport en commun ont à faire face à la complexité du réseau de transport des grandes villes. Les aides au déplacement sont nombreuses et variées. Elles peuvent être fixes (par exemple, panneaux de signalisation) ou mobiles (par exemple, applications sur smartphone). Ces aides utilisent principalement la modalité sensorielle visuelle, déjà fortement sollicitée lors d’un déplacement urbain. Une alternative intéressante serait d’utiliser l’haptique (sens du toucher). En effet, cette modalité permet de transmettre au porteur d’un dispositif haptique des informations de déplacement et de navigation, en attirant discrètement son attention par des messages délivrés tactilement.S’inscrivant dans une démarche d’ergonomie prospective, cette thèse vise à étudier l’apport de la modalité haptique comme soutien à l’activité de déplacement piéton urbain. L’objectif appliqué est la conception d’un dispositif haptique d’aide au déplacement innovant, efficace et accepté par les utilisateurs futurs. Ce projet de conception s’est déroulé dans le cadre du projet ANR Tictact, mené par le CEA-LIST de 2011 à 2014. L’utilisation de la modalité haptique étant posée comme un parti pris initial, l’objectif du projet était de déterminer la forme que devrait prendre l’assistance aux usagers et la technologie de l’outil d’aide.Pour répondre à ce défi, nous avons mis en œuvre trois études successives. La première visait à comprendre les activités cognitives élémentaires mobilisées pour consulter les supports d’informations nécessaires à la navigation piétonne. Pour cela, nous avons analysé le comportement d’un piéton effectuant un trajet urbain (en métro et à pied). Les résultats nous ont permis de spécifier les fonctions d’aide que devrait remplir un futur dispositif d’aide au déplacement. Complétées par une revue de la littérature sur les interfaces haptiques et leur utilisation pour l’aide au déplacement, ces résultats nous ont conduits à déterminer les fonctions éligibles à la modalité haptique. La seconde étude visait à concevoir l’interaction haptique avec le dispositif d’aide, en deux étapes : élaborer le concept d’interface et concevoir le langage d’interaction. Une démarche de conception participative a été mise en œuvre, étayée par l’utilisation d’un prototype et de méthodes créatives. Cette démarche a abouti à : (i) identifier un message informationnel approprié à chaque fonction de déplacement ; (ii) traduire ce message (par analogie) en métaphore ; (iii) transformer chaque métaphore en motifs vibratoires délivrés par un bracelet haptique. La troisième étude visait à évaluer le dispositif haptique (bracelet couplé à un Smartphone) en environnement réel. Une analyse d’activité de déplacement urbain a été menée, comparant un groupe disposant de notre prototype haptique d’aide à un groupe sans prototype. Les résultats confirment la potentialité de la modalité haptique pour améliorer les performances de déplacement et notamment une allure de déplacement plus fluide et une diminution du temps de consultation d’un support d’information. Notre étude ouvre des perspectives pour l’utilisation de la modalité haptique dans diverses interfaces mobiles (par exemple une smartwatch). / Whether they are occasional or regular travellers, the pedestrians travelling in an urban environment and using public transportation have to face the complexity of the transportation network of large cities. The travelling aids are numerous and varied. They can be stationary or mobile (for example, applications on smartphones). These aids rely mainly on the visual sensory modality, already heavily requested during urban travel. An interesting alternative would be to use haptics (sense of touch). Indeed, this modality enables to convey travel and navigational information to the owner of a haptic device, by drawing discreetly his attention with tactile messages. Joining an approach of prospective ergonomics, this thesis aims to study the contribution of the haptic modality as a support for the activity of urban pedestrian travel. The applied objective is the design of a haptic device as an innovative travel aid, effective and accepted by the future users. This design project took place within the framework of the ANR project Tictact, led by the CEA-LIST from 2011 till 2014. The use of the haptic modality being put as an initial bias, the objective of the project was to determine the form that the assistance and the technology of the travel aid should take.To tackle this challenge, we conducted three successive studies. The first one, aimed at understanding the elementary cognitive activities mobilized when consulting information necessary to the pedestrian navigation. For that purpose, we analysed the behaviour of a pedestrian undertaking an urban travel (in the subway and on foot). The results allowed us to specify the functions that a future device assisting in the travel should include. Completed by a review of the literature on haptic interfaces and their use for assisting travel, these results led us to determine the eligible functions of the haptic modality.The second study aimed at designing the haptic interaction with the haptic interface, in two stages: first develop the concept of the interface and second design the interaction language. An approach of participative design was implemented, supported by the use of a device prototype and creative methods. This approach succeeded in: i) identifying an informative message suitable for each function of the travel; ii) translating this message (using an analogy) into a metaphor; and iii) transforming every metaphor into vibrotactile patterns delivered by a haptic wristband.The third study aimed at evaluating the haptic device (a wristband coupled with a Smartphone) in a real environment. An analysis of the activity of urban travel was conducted, comparing a group having a prototype of our haptic assistant to a group without such prototype. The results confirm the potentiality of the haptic modality to improve the travel performance in particular to enable a more fluid speed of travel and a decrease in the consultation time of an information medium. Our study opens up perspectives for the use of the haptic modality in diverse mobile interfaces (for example a smartwatch).