Safety Evaluation of Pedestrian Countdown Signals

A before-after empirical Bayes analysis was performed using data from 115 treated intersections in Charlotte, NC, and 218 treated intersections in Philadelphia, PA, to evaluate the safety effects of pedestrian countdown signals (PCSs). Additionally, the evaluation included 136 reference intersections in Charlotte, NC, and 597 reference intersections in Philadelphia, PA. The project team also investigated the possibility of using data from two additional cities, but the data from those cities could not be used in this evaluation because of unknown PCS installation dates, lack of pedestrian volume, and crash data reliability concerns. Following the implementation of PCSs, total crashes decreased by approximately 8 percent, and rear-end crashes decreased by approximately 12 percent. These reductions were statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level. Pedestrian crashes decreased by about 9 percent, and this reduction was statistically significant at the 90 percent confidence level. The economic analysis revealed a benefit-cost ratio of 23, with a low of 13 and a high of 32.