A Study on Understanding the Factors Influencing Pedestrian Inclination Towards Using Pedestrian Bridges

The study aimed to understand the factors profoundly affecting the present motive of the pedestrians to use the foot overbridges (FOBs) in two different cities of India and also put forward recommendation based on the pedestrians’ suggestions to improve its future usability. An interviewer-administered questionnaire survey was conducted over two cities, namely Kolkata and Bengaluru covering various FOBs. The perceptions of seven different factors related to the condition of the FOBs were ranked on a five-point Likert scale from very poor to very good. The demographic survey showed that majority of the pedestrians using the FOBs were male pedestrians and aged between 23 and 45 years. Also, students and servicemen preferred to use the FOBs more than the others. Using multinomial linear regression (MLR) method, it was observed that in Bengaluru, factors such as security and surface affect the preference of the pedestrians towards using the FOBs. Similarly, in Kolkata, security along with width and comfort significantly affects the preference of the pedestrians. The survey results indicate that to improve future usability of FOBs, installation and maintenance of lift/escalators/ramps along with proper security (in the form of CCTV camera and security personnel) were essential. The study also put forward specific recommendations which provide valid information to the planners and designers, to improve the existing FOBs or construct FOBs in future to attract more pedestrians.