Evaluating Innovative Ideas in Pedestrian Signing for Temporary Traffic Control

A laboratory study of human factors was conducted to evaluate enhanced signing options that provide pedestrians in temporary traffic control areas with improved information on sidewalk closures. Researchers believed that improving the pedestrian information provided at work zones could result in better public compliance with signing. However, there were concerns that some pedestrian signing alternatives might be interpreted incorrectly by drivers as pertaining to their travel. As a result of these concerns, researchers conducted a human factors study from the perspectives of a pedestrian and a driver. The following are several key issues identified during this research: (a) none of the pedestrian signing alternatives affected driver understanding that the signs were intended only for pedestrians; (b) from the pedestrian perspective, the use of an orange background with black text for signs resulted in a higher level of participants indicating that they would react to the sign information (i.e., cross the street to a different sidewalk) without adversely affecting their comprehension of the sign meaning; (c) the action phrase “Use Other Side” was more intuitively understood by pedestrians than “Cross Here”; and (d) the inclusion of a distance reference to the closure is recommended for advance warning signs for pedestrians.