Walking Characteristics of Persons with Visually Impairment Crossing Intersections with Audible Pedestrian Signals

The authors have been continuously researching tactile walking surface indicators and audible pedestrian signals used for crossing intersections. A pedestrian walks to the opposite side of the crosswalk using audible pedestrian signals. The position where the audible pedestrian signal is set up clearly influences the pedestrian's path. We performed an intersection crossing experiment with road noise for different positions where the audible pedestrian signal was set up. Vehicle road noise is thought to influence walking pedestrians. However, we could not clearly separate the difference of where the audible pedestrian signal was set up from the influence of the road noise. We therefore conducted the experiment with no road noise in the intersection to determine the difference of the position where the audible pedestrian signal was set up. The research results were compared with and without road noise to specify the road noise influence.