Evaluating the Pedestrian Level of Service for the City Of Panchkula

Abstract

Pedestrianslare the mostlvulnerable population of roadlusers because theirlmovement is restricted to the physical boundary of walkways and sidewalks. Therefore, it is necessary to assess the walkability of the pedestrian networks and consider pedestrians’ needs when designing transportation facilities to motivate walking in safe, accessible, and pleasant environments. Walking*is*one of*the most important*travel modes*in Indian urban*and suburban areas. However, pedestrian concerns are nearly always neglected in transportation planning, construction, *management. As efforts*to make*more environmentally*friendly facilities increasing, *pedestrians are*getting more and*more attention. Though there are different ways to measure walking conditions of sidewalks, the most common approach is calculating pedestrian level-of-service. However, qualitative factors that strongly influence the pedestrian perception and experience are not addressed in standard level-of-service calculation (Jaskiewicz,2000). The assessment methods should not be limited to data collection and measurement which can be easily satisfied quantitatively, but it also should reflect the qualitative walking experience of the pedestrian (Singh & Jain, 2011). In this research, twenty-four street sections have been selected in Panchkula, Haryana. For each pedestrian segment, the level-of-service (LOS) has been calculated individually by using the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) 2010 & INDO-HCM 2017. In addition to the quantitative research, pedestrians on the segments were surveyed in order to assess the qualitative factors. A questionnaire sheet was created and Responders were requested to record their perceptions on the ease of walking on the sidewalks. The pedestrians perception of comfort and safety while walking on sidewalks is comprehensively studied by the evaluating from the survey data. From the Various Surveys performed it was statedlthatlexistence oflsidewalks onlboth sides, linfrastructure, lprotection againstltolweather, andletc. had anlimportantleffect on easelinlwalking.

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Tolencourage algreater modallshift towards walkinglonlthe streets, Firstly, itlislimportant tolunderstand andlevaluatelwalkability andlwalkinglconcepts. While walkability assessmentlstudies mainlyldeal withlperception and builtlenvironmentlaspects, engineeringlstudieslfocused on evaluating pedestrianllevel of servicel (PLOS) basedlon flowland infrastructurelcapacity measures. PLOS evaluationslfor Panchkula walkwayslare performedlusing HighwaylCapacitylManuall (HCM) 2010, Indo-HCM 2017, whichlresulted inlcontradicting ratings. Comparisonlof the resultslrevealed insightslabout thelstrength andlweaknesses ofleach method, andlled to a series oflrecommendations tolimprove walkabilitylassessments, whichlwas thelmain goal oflthislstudy. At the end, the results of both methods were analyzed to compare how quantitative measurements can differ from peoples’ real-world experiences. Comparing and contrasting the results revealed that the quantitative results for pedestrian LOS are one level higher than the qualitative results in most selected pedestrian segments in Panchkula. Further various recommendations have been suggested in order to enhance the LOS of a corridor based on Best Practices from across the world. A small re-design of sidewalk has also been done for 2031. This Research work is an attempt to enhance the Understanding & Evaluation of PLOS for an Urban area in a developing country like India.