Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

In this thesis, a novel Pedestrian Protection System (PPS), composed of the Pedestrian Detection System (PDS) and the Pedestrian Tracking System (PTS), was proposed. The PPS is a supplementary application for the Advanced Driver Assistance System, which is used to avoid collisions between vehicles and pedestrians. The Pedestrian Detection System (PDS) is used to detect pedestrians from near to far ranges with the feature-classi er-based detection method (HOG + SVM). To achieve pedestrian detection from near to far ranges, a novel structure was proposed. The structure of our PDS consists of two cameras (called CS and CL separately). The CS is equipped with a short focal length lens to detect pedestrians in near-to-mid range; and, the CL is equipped with a long focal length lens to detect pedestrians in mid-to-far range. To accelerate the processing speed of pedestrian detection, the parallel computing capacity of GPU was utilized in the PDS. The synchronization algorithm is also introduced to synchronize the detection results of CS and CL. Based on the novel pedestrian detection structure, the detection process can reach a distance which is more than 130 meters away without decreasing detection accuracy. The detection range can be extended more than 100 meters without decreasing the processing speed of pedestrian detection. Afterwards, an algorithm to eliminate duplicate detection results is proposed to improve the detection accuracy. The Pedestrian Tracking System (PTS) is applied following the Pedestrian Detection System. The PTS is used to track the movement trajectory of pedestrians and to predict the future motion and movement direction. A C + + class (called pedestrianTracking class, which is short for PTC) was generated to operate the tracking process for every detected pedestrian. The Kalman lter is the main algorithm inside the PTC. During the operation of PPS, the nal detection results of each frame from PDS will be transmitted to the PTS to enable the tracking process. The new detection results will be used to update the existing tracking results in the PTS. Moreover, if there is a newly detected pedestrian, a new process will be generated to track the pedestrian in the PTS. Based on the tracking results in PTS, the movement trajectory of pedestrians can be obtained and their future motion and movement direction can be predicted. Two kinds of alerts are generated based on the predictions: warning alert and dangerous alert. These two alerts represent di erent situations; and, they will alert drivers to the upcoming situations. Based on the predictions and alerts, the collisions can be prevented e ectively. The safety of pedestrians can be guaranteed.

Finding the way in known and unknown city environments is a task that all pedestrians carry out regularly. Current technology allows the use of smart devices as aids that can give automatic verbal route directions on the basis of the pedestrian's current position. Many such systems only give route directions, but are unable to interact with the user to answer clarifications or understand other verbal input. Furthermore, they rely mainly on conveying the quantitative information that can be derived directly from geographic map representations: 'In 300 meters, turn into High Street'. However, humans are reasoning about space predominantly in a qualitative manner, and it is less cognitively demanding for them to understand route directions that express such qualitative information, such as 'At the church, turn left' or 'You will see a café'. This thesis addresses three challenges that an interactive wayfinding system faces in the context of natural language generation and understanding: in a given situation, it must decide on whether it is appropriate to give an instruction based on a relative direction, it must be able to select salient landmarks, and it must be able to resolve the user's references to objects. In order to address these challenges, this thesis takes a data-driven approach: data was collected in a large-scale city environment to derive decision-making models from pedestrians' behavior. As a representation for the geographical environment, all studies use the crowd-sourced Openstreetmap database. The thesis presents methodologies on how the geographical and language data can be utilized to derive models that can be incorporated into an automatic route direction system. / <p>QC 20160516</p>

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Hyung Jin Kim / This study seeks to investigate the impact of inner-city highways on walkability in urban downtowns in the United States, using Greater Downtown Kansas City as a case study. This study used the web-based online survey method to assess if inner-city highways impede the flow of pedestrians among residents and visitor of the Greater Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The results showed that there were differences in the perception of the pedestrian environment between residents and visitors of the downtown area. Downtown residents generally had a more favorable view of the pedestrian environment than visitors of Greater Downtown. Additionally, the inner-city highways did not appear to be barriers to pedestrian mobility, which differs from the hypothesis of this study. However, although the pedestrian overpasses over the highways did have an impact on pedestrians’ perceptions and walking behaviors, newer overpasses with wider sidewalks mitigated barrier effects of highways more than older overpasses with narrow sidewalks. The study also found that walking was the most common travel mode for all trips in Greater Downtown Kansas City, despite potential barriers.

Wan Yee Man Emma. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 1996-97, Design Report." / Includes bibliogrpahical references (leaves i-ii (last gp.)). / ACKNOWLEDGMENT / INTRODUCTION / DESIGN OBJECTIVES / PROJECT SELECTION / PROJECT NATURE / CLIENT / USERS / SITE/ CONTEXT / WALKING WITHIN A CITY??? / PROCESS / URBAN SCALE / MISSION / PROBLEM AND OPPORTUNITIES / SITE STUDY / URBAN CONCEPTS / URBAN PROPOSALS / DEVELOPMENTS AT THE INTERVENTIONS / BUILDING SCALE / MISSION / SCHEDULE OF ACCOMMODATION / SPATIAL RELATIONSHIP / CONCEPT / 11 X 11 M MODULAR GRID / MASSING ISSUE / CIRCULATION / DETAIL DESIGN / IMAGE DEVELOPMENT / MATERIALS/ FINISHES/TEXTURE / FINAL PROJECT / URBAN SCALE / BUILDING SCALE / AFTER THOUGHTS / APPENDIX

Lui Yiu Wing Howard. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 1996-97, design report." / Includes bibliographical references (leave 109). / Acknowledgements --- p.I / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Issues and potential --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Objectives --- p.6 / Chapter 1.4 --- Concept --- p.7 / Chapter 1.5 --- Development process --- p.8 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Site Selection --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1 --- Kowloon side --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2 --- Proposed entrance at Tsim Sha Tsui --- p.11 / Chapter 2.3 --- Hong Kong Island side --- p.14 / Chapter 2.4 --- Proposed entrance at Hong Kong Island --- p.15 / Chapter 2.5 --- Choices of route --- p.18 / Chapter 2.6 --- Matrix --- p.24 / Chapter 2.7 --- Final decision & site analysis --- p.25 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Research and Field Works --- p.31 / Chapter 3.1 --- Underwater tunnel construction (Western Harbour Crossing) --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2 --- Building systems and services of underwater tunnel --- p.40 / Chapter 3.3 --- Environmental impacts and issues --- p.44 / Chapter 3.4 --- Images of under mater (psychological & physiological) compare to underground environment --- p.46 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Case Studies --- p.47 / Chapter 4.1 --- Hong Kong case studies --- p.48 / Chapter 4.2 --- Overseas case studies --- p.50 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Project Brief --- p.52 / Chapter 5.1 --- Client profile --- p.53 / Chapter 5.2 --- Programs development --- p.55 / Chapter 5.3 --- Inter-relationship of programs structure --- p.56 / Chapter 5.4 --- Individual program components --- p.57 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Design Development --- p.58 / Chapter 6.1 --- Design concepts --- p.59 / Chapter 6.2 --- Master layout plan development --- p.65 / Chapter 6.3 --- Schematic design --- p.68 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Final Design --- p.76 / Chapter 7.1 --- Pre-concept --- p.78 / Chapter 7.2 --- Master planning --- p.81 / Chapter 7.3 --- Tunnel portion --- p.88 / Chapter 7.4 --- Detail design --- p.97 / Chapter 7.5 --- Construction sequence --- p.103 / Chapter 7.6 --- Fire services --- p.106 / Bioliography --- p.109

Walking to transit stations is proposed as one of the strategies to increase the use of transit. Urban planners, transportation planners, environmentalists, and health professionals encourage and support environmental interventions that can reduce the use of cars for all kinds of trips and use alternative modes of travel such as walking, biking, and mass-transit. This study investigates the influence of the built-environment on walking to transit stations. Transit-oriented communities at quarter and half-mile distances from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) station in Dallas, Texas, were analyzed to identify the relation of various constructs of built-environment on walking to the DART stations. Twenty-one pedestrian indices were reviewed to develop a comprehensive list of 73 built-environment variables used to measure the suitability to walk. This study aims to objectively measure built-environment using spatial data. Based on this criterion the total number of variables was narrowed to 32. Walking to transit, calculated as a percentage of transit users who walk to the DART LRT stations, was used as the dependent variable. The number of stations in operation and used for analysis in this study is 20(n). Therefore, bootstrapping was used to perform the statistical analysis for this study. The final pattern of variable grouping for the quarter-mile and the half-mile analysis revealed four principal components: Vehicle-Oriented Design, Density, Diversity, and Walking-Oriented Design. Bootstrap regression revealed that density ( = -0.767) was the only principal component that significantly (p<0.05) explained walking to transit station at quarter-mile distance from the station. At half-mile distance built-environment variables did not report any significant relation to walking to transit. The present study revealed that mere increase of density should not be taken as a proxy of increase in walking. Environmental interventions that can promote walking should be identified even at locations with high density. Further studies should use advanced statistical techniques such as Hierarchical Linear Modeling or Structural Equation Modeling to test the relationship of both the principal components and the individual variables that define the principal component to clearly understand the relationship of built-environment with walking to transit station.

This study aimed to examine how the characteristics of the road network and the built environment influence the frequency of pedestrian-vehicle crashes. Pedestrian crashes (2000 – 2007) on major roads in DeKalb County of Georgia were obtained from Georgia Department of Transportation. Hotspot analysis was performed on locations with frequent pedestrian incidents to determine their built environment characteristics. Using Geographic Information Systems, the built environment was characterized using road grade, curvature, population density, the amount stores and restaurants, bars, and public transit stops nearby. A negative binomial regression model was used to examine the influence of the built environment characteristics on pedestrian crashes. The results showed that all the variables except for road grade were positively associated with increased number of pedestrian crashes. Findings provided insights into the influence of built environment characteristics which is important for injury prevention to improve pedestrian safety.