Pedestrian Level of Traffic Stress (PLTS) Application and Validation

Many of the existing methods to evaluate pedestrian and bicyclist suitability require a large number of inputs, some of which are not available in typical roadway inventory data (e.g., pavement condition, on-street parking coverage, heavy vehicle proportion), making them impractical for most agencies to apply. Some of these methods also require statistical modeling expertise or specialized software to run, further putting them out of reach for many agencies. Occasionally, their outputs do not make intuitive sense. Our Year 1 CPBS project created a well-researched, standardized version of a table-based, Pedestrian Level of Traffic Stress (PLTS) tool. It incorporates many of the most important and easy-to-collect roadway factors associated with pedestrian suitability from a) existing pedestrian suitability methods and b) the pedestrian safety literature. This Year 2 project will build on our previous effort to apply the method in at least two case study communities (including the City of Milwaukee, WI) and validate the PLTS categories in a sample of locations against real pedestrian stress ratings from public surveys and police-reported pedestrian crash data. Our goal is to establish a validated, practical PLTS method that agencies across the country can use to estimate suitability and stress for pedestrians in various contexts, ultimately leading to safer and more enjoyable walking and rolling conditions.