Actuating audible pedestrian pushbuttons is the first step to crossing the street safely. They provide blind and visually impaired users audible information about the WALK and DON&#;T WALK signals. According to the signal, pedestrians know when it&#;s their turn to cross and when they need to wait.
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Pushbutton-integrated accessible pedestrian signals are very common in the U.S. but how do audible pedestrian pushbuttons work exactly? What are the requirements for such a system? Does it properly meet the needs of the visually impaired? Is it really the best accessible solution for them?
Let&#;s unveil everything there is to know about audible pedestrian pushbuttons to make your city truly accessible and safe!
We&#;ve composed a list to help you comprehend what audible pedestrian pushbuttons do for blind and visually impaired pedestrians and the city itself.
BenefitsDisadvantagesPresence of a locator tone to indicate the beginning of the crosswalk.
&#; Not all pushbuttons are equipped with one.
&#; For those that are, this means continual noise pollution in the neighborhood.
Speakers integrated in the pushbutton: the sound information goes directly where users are standing.
It&#;s more an issue that may rise than a disadvantage but the volume of the speakers needs to be adjusted according to the ambient sound.
The pushbutton can be easily activated for people with mobility impairments. And its required height makes it easier for blind and visually impaired people to locate it on the pole.
In times of COVID-19, touching surfaces may contribute to the spreading of the virus. At the peak of the pandemic, many cities had to
deactivate the pushbuttons of their APS
.
The pushbutton simultaneously serves 2 purposes when actuated:
&#; It signalizes that pedestrians want to cross the street.
&#; It provides audio information about the WALK/DON&#;T WALK signal for blind and visually impaired pedestrians.
There must be a high number of times when the pushbutton is activated by regular pedestrians who probably don&#;t need the audible information associated with it. Thus creating unnecessary noise pollution.
As you can see, audible pedestrian pushbuttons have their pros and their cons. Does the system work? Yes, it does: it helps blind and visually impaired users cross the street.
How Do the Blind Safely Cross the Road?
But is there room for improvement regarding accessibility? Again, the answer is yes. Because you may have perceived it: one of the most challenging aspects of audible pedestrian pushbuttons is locating the crosswalk in the first place.
For people with vision disabilities, finding the beginning of the crosswalk can be difficult. Especially at intersections they&#;re not familiar with. How can you find the crosswalk and the pole where the pushbutton is installed when you can&#;t see? Yet, this step is necessary to activate the accessible pedestrian signals.
Seeing that the locator tones may not be found at all intersections, blind and visually impaired pedestrians may need extra help. Or another system.
That&#;s where aBeacon steps in. It&#;s a third generation accessible pedestrian signal which means it can be used with or without being connected to pushbuttons. As cities and all categories of pedestrians are used to push the button to actuate the APS, it doesn&#;t affect their everyday lives.
However, with aBeacon, users can activate it remotely with a remote control or a smartphone app. This enables them to rely on sound information to locate the beginning of the crosswalk.
Plus, the smartphone activation helps them find their bearings as they can select which crossing to activate in the destination menu. No risk of ending up on the wrong side of the avenue! After all, 89% of people with vision disabilities use a smartphone.
Such innovation can be a real asset for cities that want to be more connected. And that&#;s exactly what New York City has been experiencing. A Brooklyn intersection is currently testing aBeacon and the first user feedback is positive.
The aBeacon devices from both sides of the crossing are simultaneously activated to create a guiding sound corridor. It helps pedestrians with vision disabilities to cross without going off course. It works as a beacon for them.
Its high quality of sound and easy activation have been appreciated by blind and visually impaired pedestrians.
Why is aBeacon a Game Changer Regarding Accessible Pedestrian Signals?
An activation on demand dramatically reduces noise pollution for the neighborhoods as the residents living close by the equipped intersection in Brooklyn have been experiencing it. aBeacon is activated only by pedestrians who need it to cross.
For all cities, these benefits are priceless. And this makes their crossings safe, accessible and as pleasant as they can be for all users.
In addition, aBeacon can also collect data on the number of times it has been activated to let blind and visually impaired pedestrians cross the street. This can help cities better understand the needs of their visually impaired citizens when they&#;re getting around.
You already know that the point of accessible pedestrian signals is to dub the visual information related to traffic lights and their WALK / DON&#;T WALK signs.
They provide audio information to let pedestrians with vision disabilities know when they can safely cross the street and when they need to wait.
As mentioned above, locator tones don&#;t equip all intersections. They enable the visually impaired to know the pole location.
Their volume isn&#;t high but their sound is continuous. Actually, their intensity depends on the ambient sound.
According to the MUTCD, locator tones have a duration of 0.15 seconds or less, and shall repeat at 1-second intervals.
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Once blind and visually impaired pedestrians have reached the source of the sound emitted by the locator tone, they just need to locate the vibrotactile arrow on the pushbutton.
This tactile arrow points in the direction of travel on the crosswalk to guide pedestrians. To better serve its purpose, it needs to be installed within the width of the crosswalk or very near it and near the curb line.
It also vibrates during the WALK signal in addition to the sound information emitted by the accessible pedestrian signals. This is particularly helpful for deafblind pedestrians as they rely on their sense of touch.
In the United States, many cities use pushbutton-integrated accessible pedestrian signals. This means that by pushing the button on the pole, visually impaired pedestrians actuate the APS. And other pedestrians signal their presence at the crossing.
In order to distinguish between both uses, to trigger the audible pedestrian pushbutton, blind and visually impaired people need to push the button for more than one second. If they press it a second time, they can hear the sound information again.
They have information on the signalization of the traffic lights but also on the street name they&#;re about to cross.
When the button is pushed, traffic lights control is aware that a pedestrian is waiting to cross the street. It allows them to have long enough time to safely get across.
Pushbuttons actually serve two different purposes.
With audible pedestrian pushbuttons, the speakers are integrated into them so that the sound information is broadcasted directly to where the pedestrians are waiting.
To conceive accessible intersections for blind and visually impaired people, you need to know everything that composes accessible pedestrian signals, including pushbuttons.
If you&#;ve ever wondered what power you really wield as a pedestrian in a busy city, read on&#;
City life involves a lot of waiting &#; in queues in the supermarket, on platforms for trains and buses, at red lights in your car or bike, or in lobbies for elevators. But as I see it, time never moves as soul-crushingly slowly as it does when you&#;re waiting to cross a busy road.
You push the button. You wait. You don&#;t push it. You wait. You slam the button many times in succession, or give the evil eye to the person who&#;s standing right by the button, but who chooses not to push it. You watch the traffic pattern (or time the process), so that you can be ready to cross the moment you get a green signal. If you&#;re anything like me, waiting at crossings can become an obsessively competitive activity.
So, I thought it was time I gave you a definitive answer to the question, &#;Does pushing the button at a crossing actually do anything?&#;
Unfortunately, I can&#;t do that, because there is no definitive answer. It seems that if you&#;re at a standalone pedestrian crossing that is far from any other sort of traffic junction, pushing the button will turn the traffic light red. But at any other sort of traffic-pedestrian interface, what the button does depends on where you are, what time it is, and what type of crossing you&#;re at.
Now, while I&#;ve previously written about the complex maths behind traffic flow, I&#;ve never told you how traffic is managed, and that is particularly important for pedestrians. So, a brief summary: Traffic lights, controlled by computers, take in data from sensors embedded in the road. There are lots of options for detecting vehicles, but the most common sensor is the inductive loop, which makes use of the relationship between electricity and magnetism.
When you pass an electric current through a metal wire loop, you induce a magnetic field around it, and cause it to resonate at a set frequency. If you bring another piece of metal close to the loop (say, a car, for example), its frequency changes. When you remove it (or if the car drives off), the frequency returns to normal. Those changes are easy to detect, and they allow traffic engineers to remotely and constantly monitor traffic flow, counting vehicles that pass by. (CONTINUED...)
Once traffic engineers know how many cars they&#;re dealing with at a given junction, they can use that to design a light-switching pattern that keeps people moving as much as possible. London uses a system called SCOOT (Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique) to continuously optimise this switching routine, and it works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Other cities apply different algorithms to manage their traffic, and that choice also has an effect on pedestrians.
In some parts of London, there&#;s a specific system for those of us who get around on foot. Called Ped-SCOOT, it uses a stereoscopic camera, mounted on the crossing, to count pedestrians. It is activated when a pedestrian bushes the button, and if it detects high numbers of people waiting, it adjusts the traffic light switching time to give you a few extra seconds to cross. Alternatively, if no-one is waiting, or if someone presses the request button and then crosses without waiting, the system detects it and resets the timing to priorities vehicles.
At Oxford Circus &#; a junction in the heart of London &#; timing is everything. If no-one presses the button, the lights will skip the requested pedestrian phase, and instead, alternate between giving a green light to each road. But many of the traffic lights on the roads that feed into the junction use timers to manage pedestrians. Generally, pushing those button during the day does nothing at all &#; the lights will change when they are set to. But at night time, pushing them really does interrupt the light-switching pattern.
In Manchester, only 60% of crossing buttons need to be pressed during peak times, and in Edinburgh, about a fifth of traffic lights are on a timer. According to the BBC, the maximum wait time for a green man in the UK is set at two minutes, but you usually wait for less time than that.
So what about elsewhere? In Australia, it depends what part of the country you&#;re in. In Sydney, lights in the CBD operate on an automated cycle for most of the day &#; the rest of the time, you&#;ve got to push the button if you want to cross. In Melbourne, pushing the button signals that people are waiting to cross, but it won&#;t make the green appear any faster. In New Zealand&#;s largest cities, major junctions are entirely automated &#; it doesn&#;t matter how many times you press the button, it won&#;t make any difference. At other junctions, the button works, but only outside of peak traffic hours.
US cities are just as complicated. In Portland, Oregon, the vast majority of buttons really do cause the green man to appear. For many locations in Washington DC, pushing the button activates a &#;chirping&#; sound that provides an audio cue of when to cross. But it doesn&#;t actually change the traffic timing. That&#;s similar to the situation in San Francisco, where 20% of crossings are &#;pedestrian actuated&#;, meaning that they directly affect the traffic switching pattern. In Seattle, as in London, it very much depends on the location of the crossing &#; where adaptive traffic lights have been installed, pedestrians definitely do need to push the button, but in other areas, the switching signal is pre-set. In downtown Boston, the vast majority of pedestrian buttons at busy junctions don&#;t do anything. Traffic engineers assume there will always be people waiting to cross, so pedestrians get their own cycle every few minutes. But at quieter junctions, pushing the button (even during the day) interrupts the traffic flow.
There&#;s one more city that&#;s worth mentioning. A New York Times article revealed that &#;More than 2,500 of the 3,250 walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical placebos.&#; Like in a lot of cities, these buttons are leftovers from older, less high-tech traffic management systems. Pre-s, traffic in the city was lighter, and could be managed without a supercomputer and a team of traffic engineers. Back then, these buttons really did make a difference. Nowadays, just 120 of them are pedestrian actuated, but it&#;s impossible to tell which ones are which, just by looking at them. So, my advice is to PUSH THE BUTTON. It might not always help, but it won&#;t harm your chances of crossing either.
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