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Oxford Street’s controversial X-crossing at Regent Road intersections has taken the stress out of being a pedestrian, according to Atkins’ Intelligent Space business.
The so-called X-factor crossing that opened in November improved pedestrian flow around the often crowded and hectic intersection at Oxford Circus, according to analysis by Intelligent Space’s modelling team during the Christmas shopping period.
The Transport for London-funded research also found that safety at the crossing, which was designed by Atkins, had been improved with up to 20 per cent more pedestrians now obeying the green-man phases at semaphores.
The team concluded that pedestrians were less stressed because congestion had been cut, a report from Intelligent Space said. Pavement space had increased and the diagonals had added faster routes across the Circus.
Elspeth Duxbury, a director with Intelligent Space business and the scheme’s pedestrian modelling consultant, said the use of a diagonal crossing on such a scale was a first in Europe and the challenge was modelling how people would react to the changes.
“We approached this by using state of the art computer modelling techniques to analyse the expected behaviour of 5,000 virtual visitors and the results now prove our modelling was extremely accurate. In fact, journey times were slightly shorter than expected."
According to Transport for London’s business model, the crossing should generate around £6.5m in benefits from pedestrian and vehicle journey-time savings, and thereby recouping its costs inside a year. The scheme was jointly funded by Transport for London and The Crown Estate as a way of making the area work better for the 200m visitors each year.
Atkins is also providing pedestrian modelling services at Pembury Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, which is due to be the first UK hospital to accommodate all of its patients in single rooms rather than open wards. Atkins’ main task was modelling walking distances between rooms to assess the potential impact on clinical care.
This article was also featured on http://www.fm-world.co.uk |
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