What Is Best - Zebra Crossings or Shared Zones? Revealing Pedestrian Viewpoints on Two Uncontrolled Crossing Points.

Background:  Road crossing is considered a dangerous but necessary life experience for people with and without a disability. Whilst traditional urban landscapes segregate foot and motorized traffic, the pursuit of safer and more pleasant environments has promoted construction of shared traffic environments, or shared zones. Shared zones are characterized by absence of traditional markings segregating the road and footpath. Whilst negotiating a shared zone traffic users are expected to interact with each other. Safety in these environments requires traffic users to rapidly perceive, assess and respond to social stimuli. These abilities may be impacted by impairments in cognitive processing, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Hence, these demands may cause increased anxiety during negotiation of a shared zone compared to traditional pedestrian crossings (zebra crossings), resulting in avoidance of these areas and restrictions in community mobility.

Objectives:  To reveal the viewpoints of pedestrians as they pertain to uncontrolled crossing points, specifically shared zones and zebra crossings.

Methods:  Q method identified and explored the viewpoints of pedestrians specifically relating to shared zones and zebra crossings; 62 participants with ASD (n=20), intellectual impairments (ID) (n=21), and without impairments (TD) (n=22) were asked to complete a series of tasks which required them to cross both a shared zone and zebra crossing. Afterwards, participants were asked to sort 44 predetermined statements about shared zones and zebra crossings onto a grid in a way that reflected their experiences. For this study each statement was supplemented with simple images to enhance understanding, Q methodology has successfully been used in the past to reveal the viewpoints of individuals with ASD in regard to driving and public transport.

Results:  Analysis revealed two viewpoints for pedestrians with and without cognitive impairment. The first viewpoint of “Confident Users” revealed that those sharing this view (n[TD]=18, n[ASD]=15, n[ID]=6)) would not avoid either environment and were confident in their ability to negotiate both crossings. The second viewpoint consisted of 12 “Confident but wary” participants (n[TD]=2, n[ASD]=4, n[ID]=6) who while confident in their own knowledge of the road rules surrounding the two crossings were less confident negotiating a shared zone, as they did not trust in the knowledge and actions of drivers in this environment. There were 11 participants that did not load on either viewpoint (n[TD]=1, n[ASD]=1, n[ID]=9) .

Conclusions:  Overall, while participants would not avoid shared zones some preferred to seek out zebra crossings, perceiving them to offer a safer and more secure crossing option. However, the perception of enhanced safety on zebra crossings may be deceiving under certain conditions, especially, if resulting in avoidance of shared zones with lower traffic speed. Pedestrians with ASD loaded in a similar manner to their typically developed peers, suggesting that deficits in social processing and functioning may not impact on perceived safety in traffic environments, such as the shared zone or zebra crossing, nor do these crossing environments negatively impact on this population’s community access and mobility.