Evaluating the Effectiveness of Traffic Calming Devices: Using Simulation to Overcome Analytical Models Assumptions

Schools are among the most significant traffic generators in urban areas. Recent statistics show that at least 60% of parents take their children to school by car, although up to 90% of children would like to go to school on foot or by bicycle. Parents feel the need to personally take their children to school in a ‘safe’ way, ignoring the fact that the increase in the number of cars leads to a further lowering of safety, which forces other parents to use cars as well. Thus, there are more cars than children in Europe.It is now widely recognized that it is desirable to install a series of traffic calming devices aimed discouraging the vehicular crossing of residential streets and encouraging motorists to behave in an safe way that is compatible with non-motorized mobility. However, the scientific literature lacks methods for the numeric assessment of the effects produced by the installation of these devices.The objective of this work is to develop a pedestrian safety indicator for evaluating the effectiveness of traffic calming measures. The indicator is calculated using a mathematical model to estimate the probability of conflict between a vehicle and a pedestrian crossing the road. This indicator is considered a measure of the pedestrian safety of the road.The values of the model variables are assessed by a micro simulation model of vehicle/pedestrian interactions in both the absence and presence of several traffic calming measures, to provide a quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of the speed control device.