Alan Scott, assistant professor of psychology, and Elon senior Katie Atkins were awarded an Outstanding Paper Award by the Transportation Research Board – Committee on Pedestrians for their work “Visibility of pedestrian signals by pedestrians with varying levels of vision.”
The work investigated factors that affect the recognition and legibility of countdown pedestrian signals by individuals with low vision. Specifically, the work highlights that current U.S. regulations related to allowable signal sizes may well create a pedestrian environment which does not adequately provide pedestrian phasing information at intersections to the range of likely users (a user group that includes pedestrians with mild to moderate visual impairment).
The paper was presented at the 91st Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), one of the major divisions of the National Research Council, and is expected to be published later this year in the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Record. The paper was additionally authored by Billie Louise Bentzen and Janet Barlow, the principals of Accessible Design for the Blind, a research, education and advocacy group committed to improving the safety and accessibility of public spaces for blind or otherwise disabled pedestrians.