Safety Effects of the Yellow Light Border (YPB) Pedestrian Signal: An Evaluation
The conflict between pedestrians using the crosswalk and turning traffic at intersections poses a safety risk for pedestrians. To mitigate this safety risk, Caltrans engineers conceived a new safety feature for pedestrian signal by adding a yellow LED border on the pedestrian signal. The benefits of this LED border on pedestrian safety were demonstrated in a preliminary study in the city of Redding. This project will assess the safety benefits of the yellow LED border in comparison to a more diverse set of locations and conditions. Five locations across California are identified for this assessment exercise. Data sets concerning pedestrian and vehicle conflicts, driver and pedestrian awareness of the new signal feature shall be defined before the project is implemented in the field, and driver and pedestrian compliance criteria will be defined before the new device is installed and collected thereafter at the selected intersections. The defined data sets will be analyzed to evaluate the effect of the Yellow LED Border on pedestrian safety. Data sets may be revised with the written agreement of Caltrans, but material revision of the data sets is greatly discouraged. Forty prototype YPB modules were manufactured to conduct the evaluations at the five intersections and data for each location was collected by video and reviewed for before and after condition for seven consecutive days, 16 hours each day. Our study reveals that YPB signals have significant impact on the pedestrians’ behavior by reducing the overall no-push, extra-push, and violation events. The cumulative average of no-push, extra-push, and violation with respect to pedestrian volume showed a decrease of 22%, 34% and 45%, respectively. Thus, from the pedestrian safety perspective, the addition of YPB significantly improves pedestrian behavior.