Pedestrian Crossing Speed: The Case of Malaysia

Pedestrians are vulnerable road users, and they are always at risk when making their daily trips. Hence, roadway design and traffic control devices need to consider pedestrians’ safety. Pedestrian walking speed is fundamental to any roadway and traffic control design. Unfortunately, no specific guidelines exist for pedestrian crossing speed in Malaysia. The ultimate goals of this research are to establish the local pedestrian crossing speed and to identify the contributing factors. A total of 1579 samples on pedestrian crossing speed were collected at signalized and non-signalized crosswalks. The Bi-variate analysis (chi-square test) was carried out to study statistically the association of the contributing factors. The Bi-variate analysis shows that crosswalk type, age and gender significantly contribute to pedestrian speed in Malaysia. However, lighting (daytime and night-time) and race are not contributing to the pedestrians’ speed. Besides, pedestrians at non-signalized crosswalk have significantly faster crossing speed than at signalized crosswalk. Chi-square test also showed that children pedestrians are the fastest group, and elderly pedestrians are the slowest group in terms of pedestrian crossing speed. Moreover, male pedestrians have significantly faster crossing speed than female pedestrians do.