Abstract Manager

The implementation of floating bus stops (FBS) beside protected bicycle facilities has created new challenges for people accessing essential transit services. Enhanced FBS design treatments aim to channel pedestrians, slow cyclists, and improve cyclist yielding rates at pedestrian crossings, by using grade changes, horizontal deflection, pavement marking and signage, flashing beacons, physical barriers, and other strategies. But a persistent challenge for unsighted pedestrians at FBS crossings is that they do not know when cyclists are approaching or if they are yielding, due to a lack of auditory information from bicycles.

In this work I propose a novel “low-tech” system to provide auditory cues to pedestrians about both the approach of cyclists toward the crosswalk and their speed. A series of strategically-placed sensors actuate a set of bells with scaled pitches that can aurally communicate the presence, distance, and speed of approaching cyclists. The sensors can be placed at decreasing distance intervals so that the temporal intervals between bells relate to the time from arrival at the crosswalk location based on the current bicycle speed. The timing between bells also relate cues as to whether the cyclist is slowing or not.

Several sensor/bell configurations are proposed and synthetic audio files generated to represent the aural information produced by each configuration under archetypal scenarios (e.g., cyclist not slowing, slowing but not stopping, full stopping, delayed hard braking). Future work includes pilot testing of the comprehensibility of each configuration, regarding how accurately pedestrians perceive approaching cyclist behaviour and their confidence in crossing. Another important question is the most appropriate hardware for field application in different contexts (most likely pneumatic tubes or low-voltage proximity sensors). This development will be followed by field testing of the most promising approach. It is hoped that such a system would provide a relatively low-cost and reliable way to improve the accessibility of transit on corridors with protected bicycle facilities, enhancing equity and sustainability in urban transportation systems.