This research studies travelers' route choice behavior in a driving simulator with real-time information en-route. We investigate whether travelers plan strategically for real-time information en-route or simply select a fixed path from origin to destination at the beginning of a trip, and whether network complexity and a parallel driving task affect subjects' strategic thinking ability. In this study, strategic thinking refers to a traveler's route choice decision taking into account future diversion possibilities downstream enabled by information at the diversion node. All of the subjects in this study participated in driving-simulator-based tests while half of the subjects participated in additional PC-based tests. Three types of maps were used. The first type required a one-time choice at the beginning of a trip to test the traveler's risk attitude. The other two types offered route choices both at the beginning of and during a trip to test the traveler's strategic thinking. The study shows that a significant portion of route choice decisions are strategic in a realistic driving simulator environment. Furthermore, different network complexities impose different cognitive demands on a subject and affect his/her strategic thinking ability. A subject tends to be more strategic in a simple network. Lastly, a parallel driving task does not significantly affect a subject's strategic thinking ability. This seemingly counterintuitive conclusion might be caused by the simplicity of the tested network.

This study establishes pedestrian safety focused environment around elementary schools. In order to reach this objective 3 consecutive goals are fulfilled / firstly / proposing, a newly designed black spot analysis, &ldquo / Behavioral Black Spot Analysis&rdquo / , secondly / documenting pedestrian behavior around black spots, and finally stimulating effective interventions around elementary schools. This study proposes a newly designed methodology / &ldquo / Behavioral Black Spot Analysis&rdquo / which is namely based upon pedestrians&rsquo / route choice and risk perception statements. Additionally it is observed that students choose the shortest route on their way. &ldquo / Behavioral Black Spot Analysis&rdquo / reveals that traffic flows, pedestrian visibility, vehicle visibility, waiting time, road width are most important parameters of pedestrians&rsquo / perception of traffic safety. Results of unobtrusive observations indicate that interventions have significant effect on vehicle speed, number of conflicts, yielding behavior of drivers, total number of cars forming a queue, number of pedestrians stopping on the curb, head movements, crossing angles, crossing tempos, and crossing distances of pedestrians. Behind this interventions affects pedestrians&rsquo / waiting time in negative manner. Recommendations for pedestrian safety interventions are suggested.

Pedestrian walking and choice behavior presented was first studied by Fruin in 1971, and since then a lot of research have been carried out in order to understand how humans move and what does make them make choices and obtain certain patterns. In relation to pedestrians, a significant bottleneck inside public stations evaluated by research are the level-change facilities, as Stair Walks and Escalators. The aim of this research is studying how pedestrian behave in the vicinity to stairways and escalators, and how does that affect pedestrian choice, speed and acceleration when choosing one of the two facilities. Also, with a need for more data on pedestrian traffic, further data collection is a big requirement to analyze their behavior and use as tools in future measures. At last, how to optimize the movement of pedestrians in relation to level changes, considering the effects of the movements observed. Two case studies were analysed, Stockholm Central Station and Uppsala Central Station.The study compares data collection methods, tracking methods and previous studies to better fit the scope of this research. The data is backed up from previous research and explains which method better fitted the options available. As a result, video data collection was chosen to collect the data, a semi-automatic tracking software called T-analyst was used to extract speed, trajectories and acceleration from the videos, and microsimulation modelling from VISSIM further investigated different design options to optimize the overall performance and improve travel time in the same area. The analysis found out that there was a possibility to increase the overall performance of the location in higher flow levels, where the most significant queues could be seen, since there was the possibility to achieve higher speeds by modifying the width and position of the stair walks, which allow for a smaller queue in both directions.