Module C - Slide 11

ModuleC_Slide11

The WALK indication and proper understanding of the WALK indication is the most critical information provided by an APS. It’s important that it be understood correctly. The Walk must be readily detectable in presence of vehicular sound, highly localizable, uniquely recognizable as a WALK signal and unambiguous with regard to which crosswalk has the walk interval. Having all of those characteristics is important for walk indications. Being unambiguous in providing the WALK has been the subject of a lot of research in the last few years. Just as an example, there are some problems with cuckoo-cheep signals. They used to be installed with cuckoo for north/south crossings and cheep for east/west crossings. However, do you always know whether you’re crossing north or south or east or west or are all crossings clearly north or south or east or west?

Think about it, if there were just one light over an intersection for the vehicles, which was blue for north/south traffic and orange for east/west traffic, would you always know which one was for you? That’s one of the issues with using a code of different directions of travel.