Thesis (doctoral)--Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen. / Includes summary in Dutch. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 200. / Also available online.

Orientador: Renata Cardoso Magagnin / Banca: Obede Borges Faria / Banca: Antônio Nélson Rodrigues da Silva / Resumo: Uma das premissas da mobilidade urbana sustentável está relacionada à adoção e à utilização dos modos de transporte mais sustentáveis; no entanto, para que as pessoas possam obter os benefícios da utilização desses modos, e assim, adotá-los como uma opção de viagem, é necessário que as rotas ou os trajetos escolhidos sejam seguros. Ao observar o espaço destinado ao pedestre, é fácil encontrar diversas situações que podem comprometer sua segurança. Diante do exposto, esta pesquisa teve por objetivo propor um instrumento para avaliar a microacessibilidade de pedestres no entorno de áreas escolares. Este instrumento foi aplicado no município de Bauru (SP), em duas escolas, localizadas em distintas regiões da cidade. Para este estudo, foram considerados público-alvo para a análise, os estudantes usuários do sistema de transporte público da cidade. A metodologia foi composta por: revisão bibliográfica, definição do Índice de Microacessibilidade do Pedestre no entorno de áreas EScolares - IMPES e aplicação do instrumento. Os resultados mostraram que o índice proposto é eficiente para gerar dados numéricos e mapas, que possibilitam realizar um diagnóstico detalhado das faces de quadra no entorno de áreas escolares. O IMPES poderá, futuramente, ser utilizado como ferramenta pelos gestores locais para avaliação e monitoramento da qualidade espacial no entorno de áreas escolares, além de subsidiar a formulação de políticas municipais para tornar o entorno de áreas escolares mais acessí... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Mestre

Objectives: To examine the potential association between disability and risk of vehicle-pedestrian and vehicle-bicyclist collisions among children. Methods: Data from the 2002 National Transportation Availability and Use Survey for Persons with Disabilities (NTAUSPD) were analyzed. Results: Among 5019 persons who completed the survey, there were a total of 687 children between 5-17 years of age, including 299 respondents with and 388 without disabilities. After controlling for potential confounding variables, children with disabilities were more than five times more likely to have been hit by a motor vehicle as a pedestrian or bicyclist than children without disabilities (adjusted OR = 5.53, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.43-21.41). For all children, regardless of their disability status, children who reported having some difficulty with traffic had a significantly higher risk of collisions (adjusted OR = 50.71, 95% CI: 7.35-349.86). The most commonly reported traffic difficulties for all children with and without disabilities were "Too few or missing sidewalks/paths," "Do not know when it's safe to cross," and "Insensitive/unaware drivers.". Conclusions: Existing effective transportation safety interventions should be effective in reducing the risk of vehicle-pedestrian and vehicle-bicyclist collisions in children with disabilities. Future research and safety interventions should focus on how to promote the use of existing effective transportation safety interventions among children with disabilities and their families.

While studying at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, I noticed a significant issue: the town lacked a central hub to unite people of all ages, including students, families, and the elderly. Blacksburg needed to transcend its reputation as solely a college town, and that became the main focus of my thesis. My goal was to explore effective ways of connecting people and boosting the town's economy. Drawing from my experience growing up in a European town, I realized that Blacksburg didn't have a dedicated space for its residents. The streets were dominated by vehicles, making it difficult for pedestrians to navigate. Main St., the busiest road in town, connected the south and north but was consistently congested, especially at night when students were out and about. To address this issue, I chose to intervene near the lively downtown area. Draper St., which runs parallel to Main St. and serves as the border between Blacksburg and Virginia Tech campus, seemed ideal. While Draper St. currently accommodated both vehicles and pedestrians, it didn't experience significant traffic. I decided to remove vehicular traffic from a four-block stretch, from College Avenue to Washington St. This section housed important landmarks like the Black House and the iconic Benny pizza place. The Farmer's Market, where locals sold fresh local produce twice a week, was also located here, along with popular social spots like Rivermill and Milk Parlor. To make space for new structures like a greenhouse, hotel, apartment complex, and retail spaces, I planned to eliminate some parking lots. The urban intervention would have only one intersection, where Draper St. meets Roanoke St., allowing for shared use by vehicles and pedestrians. This intersection would also serve as a drop-off point for Farmer's Market vendors. I firmly believe that this project has immense potential to benefit Blacksburg, not just financially but also by enriching its cultural fabric. / Master of Architecture / While at Grad school in Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA), I realized the lack of a connecting point between all the group ages including students, families and elderly people. Blacksburg should be more than a college town, and this is the main point of my thesis. How to connect people in a successful way as well as helping the town's economy. Based on my experience growing up in a European town, I realized there is no place in Blacksburg fully dedicated to people. All the streets share vehicular and pedestrian circulation. Main St. is the busiest in town, but it is also the principal axis connecting south and north Blacksburg. This road always has traffic, and it is not safe for pedestrians, especially at night when the students come out. This intervention should be close to downtown where activities take place. For this reason, I chose Draper St. which is directly parallel to Main St, acting as the borderline between Blacksburg and Virginia Tech campus. This street is currently design for cars and people, but it does not have a lot of traffic, so I decided to remove the vehicular circulation along 4 blocks, from College Avenue to Washington St. This portion has some important buildings such as the Black House, and the iconic Benny pizza place. There is also a very important location on this street, the Farmer Market where they sell fresh local products every Wednesday and Saturday. Rivermill and Milk Parlor are some popular social places on this street. There are some parking lots which I am getting rid of to add other structures like a green house, a hotel, an apartment complex and retail among others. This urban scale intervention will only have one intersection at Draper St. and Roanoke St. where cars will share road with pedestrians. This will also allow for a place to drop off the products for the Farmer Market. In my opinion this project will bring a lot of benefits to the town of Blacksburg, not only financially but also culturally.

The basic objective of this study was to identify relevant variables that are significant to the pedestrian effect on vehicle flow at at-grade intersections. The data on these variables were collected and analyzed to determine if a statistical relationship existed between these selected variables and the vehicle seconds of delay being caused by pedestrian-vehicle function as a result of both vehicular and pedestrian movements at the study intersections. The multiple regression analysis of the data for this study produced three regression models which should give accurate estimates of the vehicle seconds of delay. The first model included the data for all six study intersections, three with all one-way streets intersecting and three with one one-way streets and one two-way street connecting. The second model was applied to three intersections with one-way streets intersecting. The third model was derived from the data on three intersections with two one-way street legs and two two-way street legs. These models all have high multiple correlation coefficients, 0.93 or above, and passed F tests at 0.10 level of significance. Therefore, a definite statistical relationship was found to explain the pedestrian effects on vehicle delay at typical urban intersections. It is hoped that this study will stimulate further research and development in the field of pedestrian effect on vehicle flow at at-grade intersections. / Master of Science

The design of new facilities - buildings, shopping centers, public transport stations, airports, or intersections of urban roads - should consider delays resulting from intense pedestrians’ flows in order to make its' operation more efficient. The general objective of this doctoral thesis is to propose a simulation model to represent pedestrians’ behavior in urban environments. Simulation models should allow planning these environments in order to provide greater levels of comfort and safety for the pedestrian. Agent-based abstraction has been widely used for pedestrian modeling, mainly due to its capacity to represent complex entities. Agent-based models represent agents’ decision-making ability based on their profile and perception over the environment. One of the most important pedestrians’ activities is the route choice. This document describes the development of a route choice model based on friction forces. The route cost calculation considers a balance between distance and the impedance generated by other pedestrians. Simulations runs shown that pedestrians choosing longer routes can have similar or better travel times. The ability of choosing not only the shorter route brings more realistic behaviors for the pedestrians’ representation, especially with small differences in route lengths and higher congestion. On the proposed model agents were modeled with partial knowledge of the network conditions. The knowledge was limited considering the pedestrian estimated field of view. In the real world it is not possible to know the network state before turning the corner. The model was validated and calibrated with real data. Calibrating a pedestrian route choice model is a complex task mainly for two reasons: (i) Many factors interfere on pedestrians’ route choice; (ii) data collection is difficult. To overcome these difficulties real pedestrians were studied in a controlled environment. An experiment was set up inside the university campus. After the calibration process the model was able to simulate a real scenario. Proposed model was applied to simulate a shopping mall environment. Simulate the pedestrians shopping behavior is particularly complex once route choice in shopping malls may be defined by a number of causal factors. Shoppers may follow a pre-defined schedule; they may be influenced by other people walking, or may want to get a glimpse of a familiar shopping. Analysis from simulations indicates that the agents’ behavior provides a promising approach for real case applications.

The design of new facilities - buildings, shopping centers, public transport stations, airports, or intersections of urban roads - should consider delays resulting from intense pedestrians’ flows in order to make its' operation more efficient. The general objective of this doctoral thesis is to propose a simulation model to represent pedestrians’ behavior in urban environments. Simulation models should allow planning these environments in order to provide greater levels of comfort and safety for the pedestrian. Agent-based abstraction has been widely used for pedestrian modeling, mainly due to its capacity to represent complex entities. Agent-based models represent agents’ decision-making ability based on their profile and perception over the environment. One of the most important pedestrians’ activities is the route choice. This document describes the development of a route choice model based on friction forces. The route cost calculation considers a balance between distance and the impedance generated by other pedestrians. Simulations runs shown that pedestrians choosing longer routes can have similar or better travel times. The ability of choosing not only the shorter route brings more realistic behaviors for the pedestrians’ representation, especially with small differences in route lengths and higher congestion. On the proposed model agents were modeled with partial knowledge of the network conditions. The knowledge was limited considering the pedestrian estimated field of view. In the real world it is not possible to know the network state before turning the corner. The model was validated and calibrated with real data. Calibrating a pedestrian route choice model is a complex task mainly for two reasons: (i) Many factors interfere on pedestrians’ route choice; (ii) data collection is difficult. To overcome these difficulties real pedestrians were studied in a controlled environment. An experiment was set up inside the university campus. After the calibration process the model was able to simulate a real scenario. Proposed model was applied to simulate a shopping mall environment. Simulate the pedestrians shopping behavior is particularly complex once route choice in shopping malls may be defined by a number of causal factors. Shoppers may follow a pre-defined schedule; they may be influenced by other people walking, or may want to get a glimpse of a familiar shopping. Analysis from simulations indicates that the agents’ behavior provides a promising approach for real case applications.

The design of new facilities - buildings, shopping centers, public transport stations, airports, or intersections of urban roads - should consider delays resulting from intense pedestrians’ flows in order to make its' operation more efficient. The general objective of this doctoral thesis is to propose a simulation model to represent pedestrians’ behavior in urban environments. Simulation models should allow planning these environments in order to provide greater levels of comfort and safety for the pedestrian. Agent-based abstraction has been widely used for pedestrian modeling, mainly due to its capacity to represent complex entities. Agent-based models represent agents’ decision-making ability based on their profile and perception over the environment. One of the most important pedestrians’ activities is the route choice. This document describes the development of a route choice model based on friction forces. The route cost calculation considers a balance between distance and the impedance generated by other pedestrians. Simulations runs shown that pedestrians choosing longer routes can have similar or better travel times. The ability of choosing not only the shorter route brings more realistic behaviors for the pedestrians’ representation, especially with small differences in route lengths and higher congestion. On the proposed model agents were modeled with partial knowledge of the network conditions. The knowledge was limited considering the pedestrian estimated field of view. In the real world it is not possible to know the network state before turning the corner. The model was validated and calibrated with real data. Calibrating a pedestrian route choice model is a complex task mainly for two reasons: (i) Many factors interfere on pedestrians’ route choice; (ii) data collection is difficult. To overcome these difficulties real pedestrians were studied in a controlled environment. An experiment was set up inside the university campus. After the calibration process the model was able to simulate a real scenario. Proposed model was applied to simulate a shopping mall environment. Simulate the pedestrians shopping behavior is particularly complex once route choice in shopping malls may be defined by a number of causal factors. Shoppers may follow a pre-defined schedule; they may be influenced by other people walking, or may want to get a glimpse of a familiar shopping. Analysis from simulations indicates that the agents’ behavior provides a promising approach for real case applications.

The purpose of this research is to analyse pedestrian volumes on multi-use trails in Winnipeg, Canada. The research methodology consisted of collecting continuous automated pedestrian count volumes at seven locations on four multi-use trails in Winnipeg from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. An average pedestrian volume was calculated for each count site over annual, seasonal, and monthly time periods. Pedestrian volumes were found to vary consistently by month of year and hour of day. Day-of-week patterns were not consistent in terms of pedestrian volume. There was a negative relationship between pedestrian volume and rainfall volume and duration, and average daily wind speed. There was a positive non-linear relationship between pedestrian volume and maximum daily temperature. While pedestrian volume correlates with weather factors, variability remains. This suggests that weather analysis may be useful as a complement, but not a replacement of traditional temporal analysis for estimation of pedestrian volumes. / May 2016