ANNOUNCEMENTS
There has been an increase in urban population coupled with the increasing economic opportunities which have led to motorization and privatization of travel patterns. The private motorized vehicles are often given priority right of way which has made the pedestrians the most vulnerable road user. The policies governing walkability in various Indian cities do not recommend grade-separated foot over bridges because shortest direct route at crossings must be given to pedestrians. In Delhi, 23% of people walk to work as compared to 3% of work trips by cars/vans/jeeps and 13% by scooters/motorcycles/mopeds yet infrastructure does not favour the pedestrians. The study looks into utilization of foot over bridges in Delhi with respect to mobility parameters and sociological perspective of pedestrians & suggest improvements for conducive pedestrian movement. The four indicators selected were comfort, accessibility, security, and connectivity. Next, it looked into the present situation of three FOBs at Azadpur Chowk, IIT Gate and ITO and gave score of 0/0.5/1 based on 15 sub-indicators examined during site visits. The ITO FOB scored the maximum with a score of 6.5/15 or 43.3% but the FOB lacks accessibility for all users. The pedestrians crossed atgrade if there are no barriers which was calculated by percentage of utilization of each FOB by conducting an observational counting in three interval of 10 minutes on site. From the survey it was observed pedestrians crossing twice in a day would prefer at-grade crossings, younger population between the age of 21-30 years used the FOB more, education of pedestrians did not play a role in behavior at crossings, and pedestrians in a group chose at-grade crossings over FOB. The female pedestrians preferred lighting on FOB as the most important security measure while male pedestrians preferred security guards. The escalators are a must for both female and male pedestrians for easy access. Based on the site visits and survey, improvements for mid-block crossings at IIT Gate and ITO and intersection crossing at Azadpur Chowk was recommended with the goal to propose better accessible and user-friendly pedestrian crossing facilities for all users.
Key Words: Foot over bridges (FOB), Pedestrians, Delhi, Walkability, Sustainable Transport.
