Pedestrians are as important a part of traffic management as are motorised vehicles. A well designed traffic control system should not just manage and protect the vehicles but should also cater for pedestrian access to cross the roads. Facilities like the zebra crossing and the pelican crossing are intended to protect and safeguard the pedestrians while at the same time allowing vehicular traffic to minimise delays to journey time.
Auto-Mate Systems provides unique pelican crossing equipment that has been developed after extensive research and traffic studies. We can also survey your site and help you to decide on the basic design and method of operation.
Here are a few details of pelican crossing if you are unfamiliar with the term.
Derived from the word “pelicon†which is short for “pedestrian light controlledâ€, the phrase “pelican crossing†was introduced into the English language as an interesting result of a trend that started in 1951 of using animal symbols for different aspects of public life. Whereas a Zebra crossing was an unsophisticated set of road markings, a Pelican crossing, as we’re sure you are already aware, is a way of enabling pedestrians to cross the road by indicating their intention to do so by pressing a button. Traffic lights are used to control the road vehicles and pedestrians are also provided with signal lights showing a red or green man, which forbids or allows the crossing of the road respectively.
How does the pelican crossing work?
In Pelican crossing, when pedestrians wish to cross the road, they push the button on the lighting post. In a little while, the lights facing the vehicles change from green to amber to red, signalling the traffic to stop. Once the red light stops the traffic, the green man signal is lit indicating that the pedestrians can safely cross the road. This light would be lit for a calculated duration of time, based on the width of the road and the average speed of a pedestrian. After that the signal would start flashing, indicating that the time is running out. The pedestrians who hadn’t yet started to cross would now have to wait for the next cycle to begin. Once the green light starts flashing, the amber traffic light would also be synchronised to start flashing, indicating to vehicles to get ready to proceed, and if there are no pedestrians to cross, the traffic can indeed proceed at this point.
A Pelican crossing has many advantages that other types of pedestrian crossing don’t have :-
- Provides a safe crossing point for pedestrians
- Allows roads to be crossed at a convenient place
- Pedestrians do not have to wait for traffic lights to change in their favour
- Vehicle delays are at a minimum as pedestrians wait and cross as a group;
- Improves road safety
Unfortunately no system is perfect. The Pelican crossing suffers from a few minor flaws:
- Can be ignored by drivers if no pedestrian is visible, so this breaks the good habit of drivers to always stop at the red light
- Can cause delays to vehicles when pedestrian flows are high as it is the pedestrians who control the traffic flow
However, the cost effective pedestrian crossing systems provided by Auto Mate Systems help to overcome these flaws by installing very efficient and highly visible pedestrian areas for the pelican crossing at your site. The design can also include duration controls that prevent too frequent pedestrian crossings.
We also offer a service contract on all pelican crossing equipment that we install at a highly competitive price.