Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start [ Music ] [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Welcome [ Title: ] Analyzing Street Crossings Part 2 Donna Sauerberger: Hi everyone again. I am Dona Sauerburger and welcome back to our international street crossing session. We finished Part 1 on uncontrolled crossings about nine hours ago, and now we have Part 2, signalized crossings around the world featuring O&M specialist Vickie Anderson in Australia and Dr. Gene Bourquin in Thailand. So let's see what's up here? What's up with this session? We're going to start with an introduction by me, explaining features and considerations of modern signals such as traffic patterns and actuations. And I'll be showing some videos of intersections here, in the United States, and you will once again need your passport ready because from the United States we're going to fly to the other side of the world where Dr. Gene Bourquin is in Thailand waiting to see us a signalized intersection in Thailand and then we will see one in Aspley, Queensland. You can post questions into your chat box and after each of their presentations they can answer a few of those questions. If we have time after they've both presented we'll open it up for questions including any unanswered questions about the uncontrolled crossings that were presented in the first session nine hours ago. Again, I'll be putting about five hours of information in 20 minutes so expect that you will have lots of questions and I want to assure you that this is all explained in detail in the new self‑study guide crossing at modern signals, of which Gene Bourquin is one of the other co‑authors. And I'm going to give a link in the second‑to‑last slide in your handout. So features of modern signals that affect us so profoundly are actuation, where the timing of signals are and traffic patterns. Turning traffic is protected and it is called protected left turns or protected right turns in countries like Thailand and Australia where people drive on the wrong side ‑‑ excuse me, left side of the road. Other common traffic patterns called split phases where the traffic from both sides of the street takes turns. In the traditional and modern traffic patterns watch what happens with pedestrians. What happens? Let's start with the traditional traffic pattern for signals and see what happens. I'll be explaining all these patterns as they are done in countries where people drive on the right side of the road. We're looking at an intersection with traffic with pedestrians traveling north and south along the major street. Arrows indicate that vehicles that are coming from both the north and the south on the major street can all go straight or turn left if they yield to the vehicles coming straight from across the street or turn right if they yield to pedestrians. So in this traditional traffic pattern what about pedestrians who are walking parallel to the major street? When can they cross the minor street? As you can see from the happy faces that my daughter‑in‑law Jill Drew for me when she designed these graphics, pedestrians on both sides of the major street can cross the minor street at the same time that all the vehicles on the major street beside them are moving. And how do pedestrians know that it's their turn to cross? It's very simple. They have a traffic signal. They use the same traffic signal that the vehicles use when it's green for vehicles on the parallel street beside them, it's green for the pedestrians. And how do blind people know that pedestrians can cross when they can't see the greenlight? They can use an accessible pedestrian signal calls APS. And if the signal is not accessible it's easy. They simply use the sound of traffic moving on their parallel street. Any traffic, regardless of whether it's straight, turning left or right, unless the drivers are allowed to turn right on the red light like here in the United States. Okay. That was simple enough. Now let's see what happens at a modern traffic pattern called split phases. In the first phase of this traffic pattern, as the arrows indicate, vehicles from the south traveling along the east side of the major street, can go straight. And their signal gives them a green arrow that gives them the right‑of‑way to turn left, meaning they don't have to yield to any vehicles or pedestrians. They can also turn right if they yield to pedestrians. Pedestrians on the east side of the major street, same side that has vehicles moving, can cross the minor street. Pedestrians on the west side of the street cannot because the vehicles on the major street that are turning left have the right‑of‑way. In the next phase the opposite happens, vehicles from the north traveling along the west side of the street have the right‑of‑way to go straight or turn left and they can turn right, but they have to yield to pedestrians. Pedestrians on the west side of the street can cross the minor street while pedestrians on the other side cannot. In other words, with split phases, pedestrians can cross with traffic in the nearest half of their parallel street. And how do pedestrians know that they can cross? Well, because there are now different signals and arrows for different groups of vehicles, pedestrians get their own signal, the pedestrian signal that indicates when it's they're time to walk and when it's not. And how do blind people know that pedestrians can cross? The signal for pedestrians should be accessible to all pedestrians. If the pedestrian signal is not accessible, with a few exceptions, blind people can figure it's probably their turn to cross when they hear the surge of traffic moving in the nearest half of the parallel street. Keep this in mind when we look at the next traffic pattern, which is protected left turns. The protected right turns in countries where people drive on the left side of the road. Now we're looking at the same intersection with traffic and pedestrians traveling along the major street that's going north and south. This drawing shows the first stage or actually what we call the first phase of this traffic pattern. Arrows indicate that in this phase the only vehicles allowed to move on the major street are those that are turning left. No other vehicles or pedestrians can cross. The next phase, vehicles from both directions of the major street can all go straight or turn right, if they yield to pedestrians. And left‑turning vehicles all have to wait. Pedestrians on both sides of the major street can cross the minor street. That means the pedestrians can cross with traffic in the parallel street only with the traffic on the parallel street that's going straight through, not turning left. Again, how do they know when they can cross? Well, they have their little pedestrian signal. And how do blind people know that pedestrians can cross? Again, pedestrian signal should be accessible to all pedestrians, but if not, blind people can figure out it's probably their turn to cross when they hear the traffic in the parallel street is going street through. There are some exceptions to this rule, which are listed in the self‑study guide that I told you about. Let's put this all together. Regardless of whether the traffic pattern is traditional, protected left or split phase, pedestrians can know that it's probably their turn when they see the pedestrian signal saying "Walk." There's no question about that. They will know its their turn. But some modern signals do not provide a pedestrian signal. In my community right here in Maryland do not have the signals. Even though they have split surveys and protected left turns. Pedestrians in this case have to guess when it's their turn. Is there a general rule? Is there a general rule that can help them to know when it's probably their turn if the pedestrian signal isn't available or isn't accessible? Again, there are some exceptions, but they can figure out what ‑‑ with those exceptions they can figure out it's time to cross with traffic number one in the nearest half of the parallel street is number two going straight through. We call that traffic, there's traffic in the nearest half of the parallel street going straight through, the near lane parallel traffic. So when that's going, when you hear the surge of that near‑lane parallel traffic, it's probably your turn. As I said, there are some exceptions. Okay. Well, that was a very brief superficial explanation of traffic patterns. And now let's look at actuation. With actuation, signal timing and pattern change depending on how many vehicles and pedestrians a signal computer detects. So what you might say? With actuations pedestrians who are not protect and cross with a greenlight may not have time to cross. The signal may give enough time for a vehicle to go through, but not enough time for a person to walk across. And yikes! You don't want to be in the middle of the road when the light changes and traffic on the street in the crossing is moving. How does the computer check the vehicles? Some of it does with induction loops or wires embedded in the pavement or with cameras or radar. And how does the computer detect pedestrians? There's a very high‑tech pedestrian detector, of course. Huh? What are they? What do they look like, feel like? Those are the pedestrian pushbuttons that you've seen or heard or felt at many of the street corners. So when pedestrians ‑‑ when we as pedestrians push the button to get to get across the street, we have to push the button. And how do we as pedestrians know that the computer is giving us enough time to walk? If you guessed it's the walk signal, you guessed correctly. So how do we let the computer know that we want to walk across? As I said, we push the pedestrian pushbutton. Okay. Now we can watch actuation in action at intersections that have protected left turns and split phases, so we're going to put on the video. All right. The first video we're going to look at is going to show you traffic patterns and actuation and then we'll look at the second video if we have it. [ Video start: ] no audio. Oh. This is the one where there's no pedestrian signal. So this is the downtown area. We've got the light is red for the street that we're facing and there's a pedestrian crossing. There was a woman that parked while I was standing there and then she got out of her wheelchair, went across and she's crossing the street, again against the red light, to get home. Other pedestrians are crossing the street that has a greenlight. And then finally one more pedestrian comes up and crosses the street with the red light. Now we're in my community, and this is the street that students have to cross to get from the main residential part to the school. This is the only signal that's within walking distance, and it has no pedestrian button. So it's an issue that needs to be considered. [ Video end: ] Donna Sauerberger: I just want to mention that many signalized intersections, intersections that have traffic signals, have separate right‑turning lanes, or in Thailand and Australia they're left turning lanes that are separate from the rest of the intersection. Okay. Now, the drivers in those lanes don't have to respond to the signal, they don't have a stop sign, so they are basically an uncontrolled ‑‑ that's an uncontrolled crossing. So pedestrians have to deal with them as they would with any uncontrolled crossing. Some people call them a channelized lanes or a slip lane. And so both of the intersections that you're going to look at are signalized and have these slip lanes so we'll address them as uncontrolled. Vickie, I think we're ready for you. Vickie is an American who has been a certified orientation mobility specialist for 18 years and a certified vision rehabilitation therapist for 15 years. After working for eight years in the good old U.S.A. Vickie decided to see the world. What she likes to call working holidays because there is always something new to see and learn in another country. She has worked in New Zealand and is now a senior specialist and team leader for queens land in Australia. She believes that these experiences and the professionals that she's worked with all over the world have enriched her life and helped her make the professional that she is today. And this is her first international presentation, and one more goal in life that she's achieved in her free time, Vickie and her husband Dave have a dog breeding company so really there isn't much free time that makes us all the more grateful that she could be here with us today. Welcome, Vickie. Take it away. Vickie Anderson: Thanks, Dona. I appreciate that. Welcome to Brisbane, everyone. Can you hear me? Donna Sauerberger: I can. Vickie Anderson: Yep, okay. Awesome. Well, I'm just going to give you a little run‑through of what I plan to cover with you today and then jump in to it. Before I get started, I'd like to say to everyone happy Australia day. Today is actually a holiday here in Australia, so I'm sitting in my office here at guide dogs Queensland with no one. No one is around. Everyone has the day off. Australia day celebrates the first British ships arriving into Australia in 1788. So everyone celebrates by having a big barbecue with friends and families, and that's my plan after I finish this. So today what I would really like to cover with you guys, first I am going to go over some definitions. As you know, we're from all over the world, so some of the things that I might say might be completely different to what you say, so I just wanted to make sure we're all traveling in the same direction and we understand each other. The next thing I'm just going to do a brief overview of the intersection and give you some basic general information about the intersection that I've chosen. That will be followed by videos where I will actually turn off my camera because I will be audio describing and I don't want to take the attention away while I read my script and you guys can watch the video. The next thing after that we will hear a bit from a traffic engineer. I had an amazing chat and multiple conversations with a traffic engineer here in Brisbane and he shared a wealth of knowledge with me in screenshots and everything straight from his office. So I'd like to share that information with you guys. If time allows, the final thing I'll wrap up with is a risk analysis on the slip lanes that are included in my light‑controlled intersection. They don't ‑‑ they don't ‑‑ they're not included in my presentation, but to get safely across the road you have to actually access these slip lanes, so to me it is kind of important to just mention and to bring that up. Okay. Well, if you would like to follow along I do have all of this stuff available to you in the file section, so Sauerburger panel, it's nine megabytes. All of the stuff is available for you guys in handouts to take and go through, and I'll tell you what pages to go to when we get to that stuff. So the first thing I just wanted to go through some basic definitions. In Australia we have give‑way signs. So a give‑way sign is an upside down triangle with red print, red border around the outside and white in the middle, and it says give‑way in large print. Give‑way means to slow down and if necessary stop in order to prevent a crash from happening. You must always give way at a give‑way sign and check that it's safe to continue. Give‑way signs are placed at intersections and other places where other vehicles have priority. This would be equivalent to a yield sign in the states. We also have lots and lots of zebra crossings, or as they say here in Australia, zebra crossings. It is a type of crossing used in many places around the world. Its distinguishing feature is alternating dark and light stripes on the road surface, resembling the coat of a zebra. A zebra crossing typically gives priority or right‑of‑way to pedestrians. There is a picture in the definition spot as well of a zebra crossing here in Brisbane. We don't call highways highways here. This was one of the hardest things for me to get used to when I moved here. They're motorways. So any highway is considered a motorway. The last definition that I have to talk about is what's called a slip lane. A slip lane is a road, traffic lane provided at an intersection to allow vehicles to turn at the intersection without actually entering it and interfering with through traffic. Therefore it's not controlled by any traffic signals at the intersection. There is a picture as well in the definition so you can really get an idea where there's the parallel and perpendicular road, there is a red car and a green car on both of those roads, but then there's a side road that shoots off just at the intersection of the two with a blue car that can slip past the lights. So now that we have quite a few of our definitions in order and hopefully we are all on the same page, I want to give you all a bit of an overview on the intersection that I chose. The minor road is called Robinson road west, and you need to know that because that's in some of the handouts later from ‑‑ provided from the traffic engineer. The major road is Gympie Road. Both this intersection is about 10 minutes down the road from where I work and it's right around the corner from a school that has a massive vision impaired unit. And I work with all the students at that school. So it's quite handy for me to bring students to this intersection once they gain a lot of knowledge, yeah, and it's convenient and easy and so I'm at this intersection quite a bit. So I've got a few questions and answers here, just to give you a broad overview of this intersection. Again, if you would like to follow along, all of this is in the file section. It's the very first file, Sauerburger panel, nine megabytes. The overview section is on Page 26 of those handouts. So first I want to talk about the traffic pattern at this intersection. There's a protected phase for right Turners using a variation. This means that the vehicles waiting to turn right may not all turn at the same time. This intersection in particular, the major road heading south gets to the right ‑‑ gets the right turning signal at the start of the light cycle. After this green arrow disappears, all traffic heading north and south is then allowed to go. Finally, the southbound traffic is stopped while the northbound traffic continues, getting a green arrow for the right turners. If there's no one waiting at either of these right turning lanes either at the start of the cycle or at the end of the cycle, they do not actually get the green arrows. So those right turning lanes have actuation in place. Yes, I will be playing the video next after this. Thanks, Nate. So is the signal actuated? I kind of already answered that, yes, a resounding yes. According to my wonderful traffic engineer Alan, 99% of signals in Brisbane have a turn actuation, a side street actuation or a pedestrian actuation. This happens at all times of day or night. Each intersection has a personality time which determines the actuation pattern at that intersection. You can see a screenshot from this intersection once we go to the straight from the traffic engineer handout that's included in this presentation. That's on Page 27 to 32, and the file below Sauerburger panel. Is there a walk signal at this intersection? Yes. All of the walk signals in Queensland are accessible by people with low or no vision as well as people from the deaf community. They're called audio tactile signals. Each button beeps softly to help with locating, and is marked with an arrow pointing towards the road that the button is corresponding to. This arrow can also be used to help with alignment for someone who cannot use the sound of traffic to align. Upon pushing the button, the audible beeping gets louder until it is time to cross the road. If the pedestrian cannot hear the ringing they simply place their hand on the device and it will vibrate when it's time to cross. All of this will be shown in the video, just making sure that we're all on the same page and we get a good overview before it starts. Do pedestrians have to hit the walk button to actually get the walk symbol? Yes. My last thing was just describing the risks that I have found at this intersection. And there are two that I've found. The slip lanes can be a risk, they can lead to an element of surprise so especially for totally blind clients they can get surprised at the slip lanes. One of the slip lanes at this intersection is viewed as a situation of uncertainty during the day that changes at night. And if we have time, we will discuss all of this in the risk analysis for the slip lane. The other is veering because it's such a heavily traveled road, if a person with low or no vision were to veer into traffic, there could be some pretty nasty outcomes that come out of it. Okay. So Nate, if you want to go ahead and load the video, you don't have to start it. I will go ahead and start it when I'm ready. To give you guys an overview of what's going to happen in the video, first we will look at the intersection, so a panorama of the intersection, and I will describe everything in detail for you. Then we will look at actually crossing the major road as a pedestrian. Next we're going to be looking at the light cycle, so looking at the cars going through the cycle, how long the turning lanes are getting. The turning lanes are the major thing at this intersection that have actuation. Then finally we will compare the turning lane on the major road with a shorter version of ‑‑ a shorter amount of time with less turning cars at the same intersection. So if you guys are ready, I'm going to turn off my video right now so you can focus on the video. And I will be audio describing it as we go along. [ Video start: ] Okay. Panning from left to right, the full intersection is shown. The major road traveling from north to south and left to right on the screen has three lanes per direction, plus a right turning lane and a slip lane. So five lanes traveling in each direction. N traffic sounds]. The minor road traveling east and west has two lanes plus a slip lane in both directions. The traffic heading east on the minor road is not allowed to turn right. You can see very clearly a slip lane from the minor road marked in white paint as a zebra crossing. It's also worth noting there are directional and hazard tactile ground surface indicators in bright yellow to help with alignment at all of the pram ramps throughout Brisbane. Turning the page now we journey across a major road as a pedestrian. [Traffic sounds]. Using the surface road indicators on the ground the pedestrian walks up to the crossing. The beeping ‑‑ I'll just turn that up for you guys. [Beeping]. The beeping from the audio tactile button informs them of where to push the walk button. Most light‑controlled intersections also have in print what the walking symbols mean for the visual traveler. The pedestrian then realigns themself. Once the beeping of the button is heard it is time to cross. [Faster beeping]. Visual travelers will see the walk signals change while the beeping slows for everyone else to use. The pedestrian is then in the middle of the major road on an island that has a caged area on the second audio tactile walk button. This road is crossed in two different cycles. After locating the second button and aligning to cross, the pedestrian waits for over a minute for the next minor road traffic flow. I'm speeding up the traffic. [Traffic sounds]. Once the audio symbol beeps then the traveler starts and continues across the road. There are TGSIs once the pedestrian reaches the opposite side of the road to help with further alignment in crossing the slip lane or if need be the minor road. Another page turn. We're looking at traffic heading west on the minor road. They get the greenlight. This includes a green arrow for eight cars turning right on to the major road. The green arrow will disappear after 25 seconds. Remember, eastbound traffic cannot turn right at this intersection. Pedestrian alert, pedestrian alert! A pedestrian has just popped out from the left‑hand side of the screen crossing the slip lane to get to the audio tactile button quickly. He gets there just as the eastbound traffic gets the green symbol, so does not get the green walk symbol. He chooses to cross anyway and in his haste across the major road he ignores the island in the middle and runs to the opposite side of the road just in time. All traffic is then stopped. The major road then gets the greenlight plus a green arrow. This time there are five right turners, so the green arrow stays for only 15 seconds. Then when the green arrow is gone, all north and southbound traffic are signaled to go. So we'll speed up the traffic for a minute. Generally there's about a minute and 16 seconds for all north and southbound traffic to go. [Traffic noise]. While it's sped up for this minute and moves toward the end of the major road light signal, three northbound cars pull up into the right turning lane. As the video resumes, the three white cars are waiting to be given the green arrow. All cars heading south are stopped to allow these three cars to turn on to the minor road. On to our last page turn. The light turns green for southbound traffic on the major road. This includes a green arrow for the three cars that are waiting to make the right turn. Two of these three cars make a U‑turn, which is permitted as long as a U‑turn permitted sign is posted. These right turners are only allowed nine seconds before the major road north gets the green arrow. Okay. Well, that completes the video. And it just kind of gives you a little bit of an idea of what's happening at this intersection. I find Brisbane to be relatively pedestrian friendly, so in that sense it can be easy to teach, it's the slip lanes that are probably the most startling part. One of the other really interesting things here about Brisbane are the roundabouts. So that was something, being from Texas and teaching around the U.S.A., I wasn't familiar with roundabouts and needed to teach myself roundabouts. So I'm happy that it's not me teaching roundabouts instead of light controlled intersections. So next I'd like to move on to the traffic engineer's handout. Again, this is down in the file section if you'd like to follow along. It's from pages 27 to 32. I can't say how impressed I was with my conversation with Alan the traffic engineer. He was so helpful. He went out of his way to send me extra information and answer any of my questions at any time during this preparation. So it was ‑‑ it was fantastic. So what I'd like to do is go through a few of the screenshots that he has sent to me and kind of talk to you guys a little bit about how actuation works here in Brisbane. The very, very first screenshot is a box that has Monday through Sunday listed and then there's lots of highlights in yellow in that box. The ticked boxes indicate the plan will operate as scheduled or locked in. Unticked boxes indicate that the plan can be chosen automatically by the stream system. The stream system is one of the systems used here in Brisbane by the department of transport and main roads. So chosen automatically by the stream system according to the realtime route occupancy data. This is called a dynamic plan selection. If the route occupancy thresholds are not surpassed, then the schedule plan will run. If any of the intersections along the corridor lose communication the dynamic plan selection will not run and the coordination will default to the schedule. Some of the interesting things that I found when talking to Alan about the stream system was that Brisbane is actually quite unique in all of Australia. There are two different companies that operate all intersections, so we've got what I mention earlier the department of transport and main roads. Or TMR, but there is also the Brisbane city council, so BCC. These two organizations run and control all of the lights. TMR has about 480 intersections that they control by the Streams program, but BCC has around 900 intersections controlled by a totally different program called SCATS. Alan was obviously very biased and he really, really loves the Streams program and felt that it was the best program to use, but it is also the program that he uses. He gave me some really good information about why he felt that the Streams program was quite successful and one of its major fortes is that it controls all motorways. So in the handout I won't read it all out, there's five different things that the Streams programs will do for motorways, so one of them is variable speed limit signs so here in Brisbane on the motorways there are electronic signs that blink and the Streams program is the one that automatically picks up when there is a heavier flow of traffic and then automatically changes the speed limit down to a slower, more appropriate speed. The SCATS program that Brisbane city council uses is used all throughout the Australian capital. So Brisbane is really unique that it operates on the two programs. The next thing that I would like to tell you guys about, so for me one of the things that I learned in talking to Alan was about these two different companies running all the intersections in Brisbane. When my students and I ever run into an issue at any intersection, we call them. I asked that we role play and I have them call the department of main roads and talk to them about the intersection, where they are. And I found in the past that I've been passed generally to three different people. Oh, yeah, let me pass you to so and so and then pass you to so and so, and then I finally end up getting to the right person. Now I actually understand why, because I didn't realize that there were two different companies operating the light‑controlled intersections. So this was a huge learning curve for me speaking to Alan and learning this information. Now I know how at each intersection to identify which company is controlling that intersection. So as Dona spoke about the computerized boxes at intersections that have actuation, on those boxes for myself and for other visual travelers, there's actually a large print M for the department of main roads or B for the Brisbane city council. And then next to that is a phone number that actually links you directly to that person. Unfortunately this stuff is not available for people who are totally blind, so that was an interesting conversation that I had with Alan thinking about that for the future. The next two screenshots that I wanted to share with you are a comparison. So one is from 8:06 a.m. to 8:11 a.m., and it actually shows the travel pattern for that light during that time period. So it shows the green, the yellow or Amber as it's called here and then the red. And it has it all drawn out in a graph. Then any blue lines are the minor street when they have come forward, hit the actuation and triggered the light to change for them. The second one is from 1:55 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. in the morning. So where there's not really any traffic at all. In that time period the minor road literally only had two cars pop up on different times so it only triggered the minor road to go two times during that five minutes when in the opposite one at rush hour peak time, I can't even count it, one, two, three, four, five, six, and then lots and lots of other lines all over the place that I'm not actually even sure that they mean, they're just dotted. So I think that it's logging the amount of travel that would flow through that intersection at the rush hour peak time. All of these cycles are set with the personality time which we will talk about next. So Alan was lovely enough to send me an example of a personality time schedule there is no intersection to see right now. We can keep playing the video if you'd like to look at it. All of this stuff is in the handouts that are down below in the files. The program's personality times, it's really interesting because the pedestrian times along with a selection of other times can be remotely altered if required. So I thought that ‑‑ Kass, there's no real intersection to look at, it's just the handouts that are available. So if you wanted to look at all of the screenshots that were available from Alan, they're all from Pages 27 to 32 in the handouts. The final thing that I wanted to take to you guys about was the plan change report. So I found this most interesting out of everything. Yes, yes, Bonnie, everything is being described on the handouts. So the plan change report, it goes for a 24 hour period of time, and I found this really fascinating, so within the 24 hour period of time, there were 29 different changes to the light cycle in that period. If you look at this page, it talks about different interventions that happen, and intervention is when a fire or ambulance vehicle passes through that intersection. So yeah, exactly, Cynthia, that's what I said, wow. 29 different changes. So if you look it says intervention for the fire and ambulance, and even that I thought was interesting in a 24‑block period of time there were five different emergency vehicles that needed to flow through this intersection. Alan stated that after an intervention passes, so when the fire and the ambulance go through, the cycle goes back to normal after two full cycles. So if you're a pedestrian and a car, you might have to actually wait there for a bit longer to get back to where you normally think that the cycle will be. So right now I haven't been able to look at too many questions. Is there anything that you would like me to address right now? As I've said, I'm happy to continue playing the video. Donna Sauerberger: Vickie, this is Dona. There was a couple of questions. And first of all, thank you very much. It was very interesting. People were commenting about how complicated the pattern was. They were glad to have so many signals and signs to explain it. And several of them had asked about the accessibility, asking is it common in Australia to have the intersections ‑‑ the signals to be accessible to pedestrians? Vickie Anderson: Yes. Donna Sauerberger: And one was very impressed with the accessibility and high‑tech of the accessibility. Vickie Anderson: Yes. Donna Sauerberger: Do you have an answer for that? Vickie Anderson: So pretty much I'd say 99% of light‑controlled intersections have the audio tactile signals as well as the TGSIs on the ground. I actually think they go a little bit crazy on the TGSIs because they're everywhere. You've got them tops and bottoms of every staircase. You've got them sometimes at the top and bottom of a ramp. They're everywhere. And it is legislate legislated to have them in all those places out in the community, especially for places like this and this intersection where you do have to do a dog leg turn, go into the middle island, 90‑degree turn to the left then 90‑degree turn to the right to actually line up and cross. That is amazing to me to have those TGSIs on the ground actually guiding everybody. Donna Sauerberger: There's a lot of people complaining and envious and wanting to have their own countries step up, so thank you. Vickie Anderson: I definitely was shocked when I moved here because I didn't think that it would be so accessible. Donna Sauerberger: Yeah, very good. I was interested. You had learned so much from the traffic engineer and we find that that's generally the case. It's really good to have a good relationship with your traffic engineer and to be able to understand ‑‑ find out what's going on through them, so thank you. You had mentioned the slip lanes and some people were talking about the slip lanes saying they would never teach anybody to cross at a slip lane. And I think you had said that two of the slip lanes you could actually ‑‑ it was a situation of confidence. You could hear the approaching vehicles. When I was quiet you knew it was clear to cross so it was not a problem. The other one during the day, it was too ‑‑ when it was quiet you couldn't hear them with enough warning so it was a situation of uncertainty. And in that case you would analyze the risk. And you said that at night ‑‑ go ahead and what did you find out at night that was a situation of uncertainty? Vickie Anderson: So if you guys are interested at looking at the risk analysis for the slip lanes at this specific intersection, I did one first just documenting whether you could get a surprise or not. Two of the slip lanes were fine, there was a low amount of surprise, you could hear at a few distance, you could see at a good distance, but yes, one of the slip lanes I went ahead and continued the risk analysis. And during the day it did have a situation of uncertainty. It has bushes, blocking your view as well as all of the audio information that's coming from the cars. By I went back when I filmed the pedestrian crossing at night and reassessed that slip lane. And it was quite interesting because it was completely, completely different. It went from a situation of uncertainty 100% to a situation of confidence with absolutely no issue in seeing or hearing any vehicles at a large distance. I think I could ‑‑ so it takes about 3.5 seconds to get across the slip lane, and I could hear a car from over eight seconds away. So it went ‑‑ amazing. It was really, really, really interesting for me to go and analyze different situations. Donna Sauerberger: I'm so glad you did that because ‑‑ go ahead. Vickie Anderson: I was just going to say in speaking about slip lanes, here in Brisbane anyway, I can't speak for any other state and Capitol City, we don't have a choice but to teach them how to use a slip lane because pretty much every single light controlled intersection has a slip lane. One of the other really, really interesting things I found when organizing this presentation and doing my risk analysis, I looked up all the road rules for Australia when we came to slip lanes, and what was expected of the driver. So I always knew that if it had the zebra crossing there that the passenger should have the right‑of‑way and the vehicles should be giving them first go. We all know that that doesn't necessarily happen all the time, but when it comes to a slip lane I'll read it straight from the risk analysis where you guys can see all this in writing. So giving way to a pedestrian using a children's, pedestrian or marked foot crossing, you give way to pedestrians crossing the road, you are turning in to. It doesn't matter whether it's marked with the zebra crossing white paint or not. You still have to give way to anybody crossing the road if you are turning into a slip lane. That was what ‑‑ Donna Sauerberger: It is shocking when you really look at it. And I just realized our sometime is down, so thank you very much, Vickie. This was fascinating. From Australia we're going to hop on a ship and go to Thailand and visit Dr. Gene Bourquin, who is a native New Yorker. After serving as a certified sign language interpreter he became a certified orientation mobility specialist and worked at the Helen Keller National Center for deafblind Youth and Adults for 27 years as well as the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York City. He has spearheaded groundbreaking research on drivers yielding and other topics, lectured, authored or co‑authored many articles on location and mobility. He has taught at many different universities. And as if that weren't enough he is also a co‑author of the online signal self‑study guide that I explained earlier. So last year Gene was ‑‑ became ordained at an deacon and moved to Thailand and I would like to congratulate he and his partner for commemorating their partnership in a ceremony in Thailand. So Gene, thank you and take it away. Gene Bourquin: Okay. I'm going to freeze my ‑‑ let me say hello here. Can people hear me? Donna Sauerberger: Yes. Gene Bourquin: So I'm going to freeze my video here so it's not distracting. And start the presentation. Thank you, Dona. I should be on my honeymoon now instead of sitting in bed at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning here in Thailand. I just want to start by saying that the situation in Thailand is very much like the situation in India, and I really appreciated Nandini's presentation yesterday. Here in the developing world there are many similarities between what's going on with traffic. There's a whole tradition of transportation that involves tuk‑tuks and motorcycles and bicycles. And people's habits and the development of road travel is a lot different than it has been in the west for a long time. So let me see if I can ‑‑ if this technology is going to work. We're looking at a traffic sign ‑‑ actually a video sign that displays information about the traffic police which is actually located at the intersection that we're going to talk about here this morning. I'm going to watch the chat box so if I am speaking too fast, I am a native New Yorker, let me know, and if I'm not clear let me know that also. So there is a priority here in Thailand for looking at traffic accidents and traffic deaths. Even though Thailand is one‑fifth the size of the United States, the rate of traffic injuries and deaths are two or three times higher than they would be in the west. And so you'll see that there's a big emphasis on keeping traffic isolated as it moves and there is not a very high priority put on pedestrian movement, as the traffic engineers try to keep the amazing amounts of traffic going in these major cities here in Thailand. So displaying right now is a newspaper headline that talks about a day in late 2016 where there were actually 524 accidents and 42 deaths and 526 people injured in a single day on the roads in Thailand. Chiang Mai, Thailand is the largest city in the north. It has a population of 160,000. And the surrounding districts comprise about one million people. It is quite an amazing and beautiful place. Really very welcoming people. It's just stunningly beautiful at certain points and I'm just so lucky to be living here now. And also doing the work at the School for the Blind. That said, we have our major intersections. There are not a lot of intersections that are traffic signal controlled here in Thailand in the north. Most intersections are either stop sign controlled or not controlled at all. But when it comes to the major intersections it is typical to use split phasing signals, and I'll go into this a little more, thank you, Dona, for introducing this. Yes, Rachel, I paused my video on purpose because you don't need to see me speaking, but I'd rather you just look at the PowerPoint. So yes, my video is frozen. So basically what happens here is they try to isolate the traffic movement to reduce the amount of accidents, what traffic engineers call conflicts that happen at an intersection between vehicles, other vehicles and pedestrians. They try to introduce that by keeping the flow of traffic in one direction isolated at any given time. What we were calling slip lanes in other countries in the U.S.A. are generally called by traffic engineers channelized turn lanes, and I'll be referring to them as CTLs. And they are generally free flowing both here and in the U.S.A., that is, there are no stop signs. There might be yield signs, but no real traffic controls on those left turning lanes that you will see. Okay. So here is an aerial view of the intersection that you will be looking at in a moment. There is ‑‑ north is pointing towards the top of the screen. There is a major shopping center that is viewable in a big gray blob at the upper left‑hand corner. And the intersection is one where it connects a lot of major roads. I'm going to show you those channelized turn lanes, those slip lanes or CTLs. Yes, we do drive here on the left here in Thailand. So everything is a little reversed if you are watching this from the U.S.A. or another country where you drive on the right. So here are the slip lanes or CTLs, and in this picture you can see three of them. And they handle all the left‑turning traffic and they have no controls. And what this means as you'll see is that to make any crossing from corner to corner you have to cross two channelized turn lanes which can make this ‑‑ these crossings challenging. Okay. So this intersection has a name. We have a lot of names here for intersections and corners of cities and stuff, and it's Rinkham intersection. It is shared by two municipalities, one is the city and the other is the department of highways, which is federal. This intersection has what's called adaptive or actuated control, which as Dona and Vickie explained means that there's a computer controlling everything that's going on at the corner. And while we'll see that there are patterns, those computers are able to change the traffic patterns and the signals any time that they are programmed to change them. Also the nearby traffic control police can override the automated system and can change the signals manually, which adds another layer of complexity. The point is at any given time you never really know that the patterns you've seen before will continue. So you can't really memorize the way the signals are working at the intersection and be 100% certain that that pattern will continue. There is a system in place here called GridSmart cameras. And the GridSmart cameras collect data and then feed it into the controller computer, which is at the corner or at one of the pork chops at the intersection. But those GridSmart cameras collect data, but do not share it with the other traffic controllers along what's called a corridor. When you have a long main road, often in the U.S.A. the computers at each of the corners will share data and so traffic signal decisions can be made that will impact the traffic all along the corridor. That is not true in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai, you're only collecting data at the particular corner and decisions are being made on that data. And you'll see some of the effects of this when I show you some graphs. It seems from what I observed in about 30 or 40 observations of the intersection and timing it out that the data collects and changes things based on the time of day and the patterns of traffic capacity at that intersection at that time. Almost never when I was at the intersection was there anything but capacity traffic. That means that when the traffic had a green signal there was always traffic to go through the lights. And so there were never lulls in traffic, at least ‑‑ and I did not observe the traffic at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, but at least during times when pedestrians would likely be there, the traffic is almost always at full capacity. So let's take a look at how these traffic signals work. And there's questions coming up about the traffic patterns and I'll show you some graphs about that very soon, Cynthia. Thank you for asking. Here again is the bird's eye view and I'm going to show you exactly the typical pattern that was observed in every observation I saw. The pattern is here, but the timing varies from throughout the day. So the first traffic that moves is northbound traffic, and there are two arrows that control that northbound traffic. The through traffic get a green arrow, and the left‑turning ‑‑ the right‑turning traffic gets a right‑turning arrow. There are no what traffic engineers called green balls or circular signals. So there's no permitted turns. There's never a time when you can turn left into the opposing traffic. And all left turns go through those channelized turn lanes. After the southbound traffic goes and all the other legs are stopped, then the southbound traffic goes, that first traffic the was northbound, now we're on southbound and the southbound traffic once again has two arrows, one for through traffic and one for the right turning traffic. And then the ‑‑ this and then the westbound traffic goes and then the eastbound traffic goes. It was the eastbound traffic that I actually collected data that we'll look at in just a moment. When I was observing the intersection. Because to get data on the entire cycle on all four degrees would have been a bit overwhelming. Okay. So basically we're dealing with an intersection that is four way and right angled. It's at the intersection of a highway, it's actually called super highway. So it's very busy and a circular highway that goes completely around the city. And then the other legs are coming out of two major commercial roadways that have major retail, major hotel areas and major residential areas. And they all come into this one area and leading up to this gigantic shopping mall. We have some fantastic shopping malls in Thailand. In this photo you will see that the highway is the north leg that terminates here at this intersection. You can see the four turning, channelized turn lanes, so CTL, that allow for left‑turning traffic, and you can see that the south leg is a narrow road that goes along a retail ‑‑ retail corridor. Let's take look at a video of the traffic movement which I hope will give you an idea of what this actually feels like. It was ‑‑ actually, I took video during the day and the evening and the evening video was clearer. This video will ‑‑ is slowed down and it will give you I hope a good idea of what it feels like when you're at this intersection. You'll see that the traffic looks chaotic, but it is very well controlled. And here we go. [ Video start: ] So the very first traffic that's going to go is the northbound traffic. That's the traffic that you can see eastbound traffic and I'm going to try to go into full screen mode and see if that helps. I hope that's better. I can't see the comment thread. So that's the northbound traffic that's going right now. And you can see that the cars in the slip lane are coming from the west bound lanes and all the right turning traffic also has an arrow. I'm going to pan around and you can see that the eastbound traffic is completely stopped. The southbound traffic is completely stopped. That northbound traffic is continuing. The southbound traffic is still stopped. The westbound traffic is also completely stopped. The northbound traffic is now getting the red signal and it should stop at any moment now. And now all the southbound traffic and the westbound traffic is going. I'm going to try to take myself out of full mode. [ Video end: ] And that's the end of the video. The basic idea is that we have complete split phasing at the intersection. So I took a bunch of timings at the intersection from about 8:45 in the morning to 9:00 p.m. at night, and the eastbound traffic had a green interval for the traffic to move, plus the yellow interval, the change time interval, so the eastbound bound traffic phase was anywhere from 50 to 120 seconds. The entire cycle, which is from the beginning of the green phase for the eastbound traffic all the way through all four legs moving then back to the eastbound went anywhere from 265 seconds to 690 seconds. That means that if you were waiting to cross the street, then you were waiting for a near‑lane parallel surge, you could wait up to seven minutes in order for your turn to start crossing. We looked at that eastbound traffic again and during the day the amount of time that eastbound traffic was given as a portion of the entire cycle for all four legs varied from about 20% of the cycle to about 30% of the cycle. Here are the signal heads for what the traffic controls look like. And there is the GridSmart camera that's collecting the data from the different vehicles. On the left here we have a picture of the controller box which contains the computer that's analyzing the data, and here is a signal head in the middle that shows that there are two arrows controlling the traffic, not green circular signals. And of course the two signals on the right are orange or red signals. So looking at the major features of this intersection, you'll note that there are no pedestrian signals and this is typical at all the major intersections in Chiang Mai. There are no walk signals, there are no pedestrian buttons, there are no accessible pedestrian signals at these intersections. There are some faded crosswalks, and while I was doing the observations we needed that some of these are being repainted. All the left turns are free flow in the channelized control lanes and there are no permissive turns. There's no time for people to make turns when the opposing traffic is coming at them. So this intersection ‑‑ this intersection has some benefits. Despite it looking very challenging. At least in theory the green interval is always long enough to cross when you start your crossing with a near‑lane parallel surge. So if we do the standard timing that engineers use for crossing the street, which is 3.5 feet per second, it would take about 28 seconds to cross the major roadway for a typical pedestrian. And that's without stopping at a median and without considering the timing needed to listen to and make sure you got the surge and other things that might happen while you're crossing. But the very shortest screen interval that I observed was 50 seconds. That means that there should be enough time for a pedestrian to cross. All the traffic movements are isolated so there isn't a lot of conflicts at the intersection where vehicles and pedestrians will be conflicted except at these channelized turn lanes. The channelized turn lanes, as we'll discuss in the challenges for the intersection, are the real problem. The good thing about the intersection is that there are always pedestrians around because it's such a good intersection for getting to the shopping mall, for getting to hotels and for getting to the major retail areas. Somebody is commenting on how extended the entire cycle is and how long it can be for pedestrians and drivers to wait to get their right‑of‑way, and that's true. There's some data that says any interval for drivers over 120 seconds doesn't really help traffic throughput, but I'll say again the priority is almost always for cars getting through because traffic here is so bad, and there is a very low priority on pedestrian safety and pedestrian crossings. As you can see at the top of the intersection I've proved once again I can't spell or type, but these are the intersection negatives. There are no detectable warning surfaces at the intersection. So it can be difficult to find out where you are supposed to be crossing the street. There's always a very large curb radii, which means that the corners are very long and the curve at the corners is very large. So it can be difficult to figure out exactly where a pedestrian might need to line up to be at the crosswalk. Pedestrians typically wait for more than four minutes in the morning and up to seven minutes in the afternoon in order to get that time to cross, and the maximum I saw was 11 and a half minutes in the mid‑evening to cross with the near‑lane parallel surge. The waits for drivers are equally long. As I said, benefits of going over 120 seconds are negligible, but the control is set so that sometimes through‑traffic goes for much longer than two minutes. Auto most times it seems impossible considering ambient noise and the channelized turn lanes to determine what we might call a crossable gap. So let's take a look at how pedestrians are typically crossing at this intersection. I clipped out all the crossings I have of pedestrians crossing and again just to give you a flavor of what this might feel like if you were there and you were a sighted person, how people cross. So let's see. It does take a minute ‑‑ I'm going to back this up. It does take a minute for the vide o to load and I'll hope that that happens. It doesn't look like the video is loading. I'm going to try one more time. Donna Sauerberger: The video is playing on my end over here at TSBVI, just to let you know, Gene. Gene Bourquin: Maybe can somebody say if they see the video. Okay. Donna Sauerberger: [indiscernible]. Gene Bourquin: I can't see it. You will see pedestrians are running. You will also see that they are crossing halfway into what might be a median. In the U.S.A. a median has to be at least six feet wide. Here there are very narrow medians, really just areas where traffic gets separated going in opposing directions. Donna Sauerberger: Let me just describe that the pedestrians are crossing half the street, as you said, it's the half where traffic is waiting. And they're now standing in the middle of a very thin median strip while about five lanes of traffic are moving ahead of them, and they're waiting. More pedestrians are walking. Some of them before had been running to get to where they're going. So there are now about a half a dozen, and more pedestrians are joining them on that median strip. Gene Bourquin: Let me know when it's done, Dona. Donna Sauerberger: I can't see the pedestrians anymore. It looks like the other street is moving and the other traffic on the other street is moving, but I can't tell quite for sure what's happening. Yeah, the whole crowd now is now moving from one median strip to another, and that's another video. Gene Bourquin: So let's take a look at some of the features and how this might affect a blind or low vision pedestrian. The ambient noise levels here are very high. And as we know from Dona and rob's research, ambient noise can really affect how well you can hear traffic movement and detecting traffic. Pedestrians must cross within or near two free‑flow channel turn lanes or slip lanes, but each crosswalk. So there are actually four segments for each crossing. You cross a CTL, then you cross with the near‑lane traffic moving parallel, and then you encounter another channelized turn lane. There are really no formal pedestrian refuge or medians to speak of. And it may be possible to create a detectable yielding situation at the channelized turn lanes, but that could be difficult. The middle sections of the crossing, though, do not have any turning vehicles, which is a positive. It would be easy to get assistance to cross the street. The one thing I would be suspicious of is that assistance may get you into a situation where you're standing in the middle of the highway and also crossing against what would be traffic signals. Because people don't tend to wait because it's such a long cycle to wait through that people tend to cross when it's not ‑‑ when they don't have the right‑of‑way. Let's move forward. Okay. So the risks are that when I observe this intersection, you could sometimes hear the traffic in the best condition. About 1 feet from the crosswalk before it got to the ‑‑ before it got to the crosswalk. But there were so many times I couldn't hear the traffic that I did not consider that a reliable way to identify a crossable gap. Since about 40% of the traffic is also from motorcycles and the motorcycles were entirely impossible to hear and motorcycle accidents here are an enormous percent of the traffic accidents that cause pedestrian injury and deaths that it really would be difficult. I'm hearing a video again on my microphone. It really would be difficult to get across those channelized control turn lanes without a very high risk. I'm wondering if somebody can turn that video off or mute their microphones so that we're not hearing the video. Donna Sauerberger: I think we cannot hear the video. Gene Bourquin: That video is very loud. I can't hear myself. Okay. Some people are not hearing it. If you're on the phone you shouldn't be hearing it, but I wish somebody would stop the video. Right now, likely here the risks are fairly high and I'll go through them. If you are likely to be injured or killed by automobiles going 25 miles per hour, there's a 36% chance of fatality or being incapacitated. I also found some reports on ‑‑ I can still hear that video ‑‑ on the likelihood that you will be killed or hospitalized more than 24 hours, and this was a study done in Thailand. And if the motorcycles are going 25 miles per hour there is a 27% chance that you will be killed or seriously injured and remain in the hospital. So I think that the risk, if I were crossing, I would find the risk not acceptable. I would probably seek assistance or use public transportation or use a different route, although the nearest crosswalks that might give you a more crossable situation are at least a quarter of a mile away. And the question about detectable warning surfaces and whether they are aligned for pedestrian crosswalks ‑‑ thank you for stopping the video. The detectable warnings are not required in the U.S.A. or in Thailand to be alignment helpful. And in fact, the vast majority of detectable warning surfaces at ramps and corners in the U.S.A. are not usable for aligning to cross the street. And that's also true here in Thailand. There is a recommendation in the guidelines that says detectable warning surfaces should be aligned, but actually the installation of curb ramps and detectable warning surfaces are very, very complicated and often it's just not possible for engineers to install them in a way where the pedestrian would be able to use them for alignment. I think I'm out of time now, so Dona, I'm wondering if there are any final words and how we might follow up with some of the questions we haven't answered. Donna Sauerberger: Thank you so much, Gene. I don't think we have time to answer any of the questions. I want to thank you and Vickie. This has been most interesting. There's a lot that's in common, a lot that's different. I want to make sure that everybody knows that there is a self‑study guide that has a lot of information and would answer a lot of the questions that have been asked. It's the self‑study guide at www.sauerburger.org/dona/signals. So a lot of information is in there. So thank you both very much, very interesting. [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Thank you [ Music ] Fade to black.