Pedestrian rule compliance at signalized intersections in different urban contexts: An observational study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the rule compliance behavior of pedestrians at signalized intersections located in two different urban contexts in Italy, a tourist context and a typical working urban context, and to highlight if there is any influence, of the specific urban context, on the non-compliance behavior of pedestrians. Digital video camera images are gathered in two different urban contexts and data are processed using automated software, self-written in MatLab. Both test places are located in Tuscany (Italy) and they are only 20 km apart. The tourist, or recreational, context is the beach town of Viareggio. The typical working, or commuter, urban context is the historical city of Lucca. Factors such as age, sex and group size are analyzed. Pearson’s chi-square test has been applied to investigate whether the difference between observed values and expected values of variables is statistically significant. The average crossing speed in tourists is found to be 1.50 m/s and the average 15th percentile is 1.09 m/s, whereas in commuters, the average crossing speed is found to be 1.78 m/s and the average 15th percentile is 1.42 m/s. The obtained results highlight that pedestrians in a tourist urban context are generally more compliant to traffic lights than in a commuter urban context. Moreover, the results point out that pedestrian behavior is highly linked to the urban context, and the obtained results of this exploratory study on pedestrians, in a recreational context as compared to a working one, raise some interesting questions that deserve further research work.