A pedestrian crossing is a place designated for pedestrians to cross a road, street or avenue. The term "pedestrian crossing" is also used in the Vienna and Geneva Conventions, both of which pertain to road signs and road traffic.
A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically. Pedestrians may also be wheelchair users or other disabled people who use mobility aids.
Street reclaiming is the process of converting, or otherwise returning streets to a stronger focus on non-car use — such as walking, cycling and active street life. It is advocated by many urban planners and urban economists, of widely varying political points of view. Its primary benefits are thought to be:
A living street is a street designed with the interests of pedestrians and cyclists in mind. Living streets also act as social spaces, allowing children to play and encouraging social interactions on a human scale, safely and legally. Living streets consider all pedestrians granting equal access to elders and those who are disabled. These roads are still available for use by motor vehicles; however, their design aims to reduce both the speed and dominance of motorized transport. The reduction of motor vehicle dominance creates more opportunities for public transportation.
Spatial network analysis software packages are analytic software used to prepare graph-based analysis of spatial networks. They stem from research fields in transportation, architecture, and urban planning. The earliest examples of such software include the work of Garrison (1962), Kansky (1963), Levin (1964), Harary (1969), Rittel (1967), Tabor (1970) and others in the 1960s and 70s. Specific packages address their domain-specific needs, including TransCAD for transportation, GIS for planning and geography, and Axman for Space syntax researchers.
The public transport accessibility level (PTAL) is a method sometimes used in United Kingdom transport planning to assess the access level of geographical areas to public transport.
Shared space is an urban design approach that minimises the segregation between modes of road user. This is done by removing features such as curbs, road surface markings, traffic signs, and traffic lights. Hans Monderman and others have suggested that, by creating a greater sense of uncertainty and making it unclear who has priority, drivers will reduce their speed, in turn reducing the dominance of vehicles, reducing road casualty rates, and improving safety for other road users.
Living Streets is a charity from the United Kingdom. Their goal is to promote pedestrian safety. It was founded in 1929 as the Pedestrians' Association and became known as the Pedestrians' Association for Road Safety in 1952. The current name was adopted in 2001. It is a voting member of the International Federation of Pedestrians.
A travel plan is a package of actions designed by a workplace, school or other organisation to encourage safe, healthy and sustainable travel options. By reducing car travel, travel plans can improve health and wellbeing, free up car parking space, and make a positive contribution to the community and the environment. Every travel plan is different, but most successful plans have followed a structured process in their development.
In urban planning, walkability is the accessibility of amenities by foot. It is based on the idea that urban spaces should be more than just transport corridors designed for maximum vehicle throughput. Instead, it should be relatively complete livable spaces that serve a variety of uses, users, and transportation modes and reduce the need for cars for travel.
Legible London is a citywide wayfinding system for London, operated by Transport for London (TfL). The system is designed to provide a consistent visual language and wayfinding system across the city, allowing visitors and local residents to easily gain local geographic knowledge regardless of the area they are in. It is the world's largest municipal wayfinding system.
In urban design, permeability and connectivity are terms that describe the extent to which urban forms permit movement of people or vehicles in different directions. The terms are often used interchangeably, although differentiated definitions also exist. Permeability is generally considered a positive attribute of an urban design, as it permits ease of movement and avoids severing neighbourhoods. Urban forms which lack permeability, e.g. those severed by arterial roads, or with many long culs-de-sac, are considered to discourage movement on foot and encourage longer journeys by car. There is some empirical research evidence to support this view.
In England and Wales, the Manual for Streets, published in March 2007, provides guidance for practitioners involved in the planning, design, provision and approval of new streets, and modifications to existing ones. It aims to increase the quality of life through good design which creates more people-oriented streets. Although the detailed guidance in the document applies mainly to residential streets, the overall design principles apply to all streets within urban areas.
Active mobility, soft mobility, active travel, active transport or active transportation is the transport of people or goods, through non-motorized means, based around human physical activity. The best-known forms of active mobility are walking and cycling, though other modes include running, rowing, skateboarding, kick scooters and roller skates. Due to its prevalence, cycling is sometimes considered separately from the other forms of active mobility.
LinSig is software by JCT Consultancy which allows traffic engineers to model traffic signals and their effect on traffic capacities and queuing. As well as modelling the effects of traffic signals LinSig also optimises signal timings to reduce delay or increase capacity at a junction or group of interlinked junctions.
Building for Life, Building for Life 12, Adeliladu am Oes 12 Cymru and Building for a Healthy Life are design tools for improving the quality of new homes and neighbourhoods used across England and Wales. The current version in use in England is Building for a Healthy Life .
The International charter for walking is an initiative undertaken by 'Walk21' to encourage walking in urban areas for benefits to health, the environment and the economy.
Junctions is a software package by Transport Research Laboratory. It incorporates the previously separate programs ARCADY, PICADY and OSCADY. The latest version, Junctions 10, was launched on 3 February 2021.
Technology readiness levels (TRLs) are a method for estimating the maturity of technologies during the acquisition phase of a program. TRLs enable consistent and uniform discussions of technical maturity across different types of technology. TRL is determined during a technology readiness assessment (TRA) that examines program concepts, technology requirements, and demonstrated technology capabilities. TRLs are based on a scale from 1 to 9 with 9 being the most mature technology.
The green transport hierarchy (Canada), street user hierarchy (US), sustainable transport hierarchy (Wales), urban transport hierarchy or road user hierarchy is a hierarchy of modes of passenger transport prioritising green transport. It is a concept used in transport reform groups worldwide and in policy design. In 2020, the UK government consulted about adding to the Highway Code a road user hierarchy prioritising pedestrians. It is a key characteristic of Australian transport planning.
