Abstract:
Pedestrian is the most crucial factor for the roadway system in a mega city like Dhaka. As more than 17 million people are presently living in this city and all major commercial, economical, health and governmental activities are carried out here, millions of trips are generated each day. For each trip, maker has to walk on foot for a segment of the trip and in some cases for the entire trip. But there are insufficient pedestrian facilities in Dhaka and the available facilities are not properly used due to enormous deficiency. Pedestrian safety at intersections is influenced by several factors, among which behavior of pedestrians has the most direct impact. Effective management of pedestrian behavior can make the road network functional whereas failure to do so will worsen the situation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze pedestrian walking speed. It continues to suggest if there is a necessity of grade separated pedestrian facility as it is an integral component of road safety and traffic management. In the survey, number of pedestrian crossing in the sidewalk directions, number of pedestrian crossing using sidewalk were collected at peak period. At selected intersections, existing walking and crossing facilities were observed and deficiencies were identified. In the surveyed intersections, percentages of illegal crossings were quite high with an average of about (66.25 m/min). About 4 hours of data collected, the necessity of grade separated facilities in these intersections has been justified as the number of crossings in each intersection was found more than 1953 pedestrian crossings per hour. From questioner data it has been found that pedestrians are unwilling to use the facilities provided and there is lack of respect towards the traffic law. So, to improve the pedestrian safety and conduct effective intersection operations, both at-grade and grade separated facilities are needed in those intersections with proper engineering, educational and enforcement measures.
