Pedestrian signals countdown timers. Time to move on.

Just a few weeks ago Brisbane City Council installed pedestrian signal countdown timers at five CBD sites for a trial period until 26 October 2012.

 Adelaide Street and Edward Street

• Adelaide Street and Albert Street pedestrian crossing
• Eagle Street and Wharf Street and Queen Street
• George Street at Queen Street pedestrian crossing
• Charlotte Street and Edward Street

All these intersections are located in Brisbane's CBD and have a high number of pedestrians using them. 

The countdown works during the Flashing Don’t Walk interval. This is a time between the Green Man and the Red Man when the Red Man is flashing.  That interval is not used in Greece and most European countries. Under Australian and Queensland road rules (231) the pedestrian is not allowed to start crossing during the Flashing Don’t Walk interval. 

The operation of the countdown timers during the flashing red interval raised a lot of questions and especially whether this actually results to pedestrians crossing illegally. This same choice was made in a similar trial case in Sydney in 2010 where the specific choice was made simply because this type of countdown was most compatible with adaptive traffic control, used in Sydney (SCATS traffic control). I don't know exactly why the same choice was made in Brisbane but I guess that the fact that SCATS is also used here, played some role in this choice.

The basic conclusions of the Sydney trial research were:

• Safety: There was no net change in pedestrian safety–while late starters were more successful finishing crossing (prior to the start of the SDW interval) where PCTs were installed, the late starters were offset by a reduction in pedestrians starting during the Walk interval.
• Compliance: The level of compliance by pedestrians appears to have decreased at wider crossings where PCTs were installed. There was an increase in late starters that started crossing during the FDW interval, although non-compliant vehicles may have contributed tothis effect.
• Amenity: Results suggested that pedestrian amenity may have been improved due to the reduction in the number of pedestrians required to wait until the next Walk interval to cross.

Probably the results of the trial period in Brisbane would not be much different and this may result in Brisbane CC not going through with the full programmed installation.

But the evolution for pedestrian traffic in cities and especially in the CBD areas has just started. And traffic signal countdown timers is only a small part of it. The plethora of different solutions for counters across the world is amazing. There are even some that are animated as this one in Auckland.

But the real issue is to prioritize pedestrian traffic over to vehicle traffic in the CBD areas. After all, the research has shown that after a period of 30 to 45 seconds of waiting, pedestrians become more risky, impatient and were more likely to cross whenever they could regardless of the pedestrian signal displays.

So we have to start thinking for pedestrian traffic similarly to how we think for cars when we programming traffic signal operations. How about green waves for pedestrians across roads linking major railway or metro stations to the core of CBD for example? Or even restricting vehicle turning movements at intersections during pedestrian traffic peak hours. We have to be more brave and pilot projects and trial periods are tools that allow us to.