Safe Curb Parking Distance Near School-Gate Ensuring Child Pedestrians' Safety

The presence of curb parking near school-gate is a serious threat to the safety of child pedestrians while crossing the road. Child pedestrians with limited discernibility often cannot sense an approaching vehicle obstructed by the parked vehicle(s). On the other hand, when child pedestrians are willing to cross the road between parked vehicles, it is also challenging for the driver of the approaching vehicle to spot them due to their short height. This often leads to a vehicle-child collision in front of the school-gate. This consequence of curb parking has been well identified and investigated in the literature. However, none of the past studies has forwarded any formula or methodology to determine 'up to what distance this curb parking should be prohibited from the school-gate?'. In this background, this paper introduces the Safe Curb Parking Distance (SCPD) and demonstrates a novel methodology to estimate it. The methodology is driven by the concept of stopping sight distance coupled with basic trigonometry. It is very generic and thus applies to any context with different traffic characteristics and driving cultures. After applying this methodology, the study revealed that for a design speed of 40 km/h and a parking width of 2.5 m, the curb parking should be prohibited up to a distance of 35 m from the school-gate. By doing so, when the child pedestrian intending to cross the road from the school-gate will be spotted for the first time, the driver of the approaching vehicle will have sufficient time and the distance ahead to stop the vehicle before the cross location. In addition, this paper includes four case studies where the proposed methodology was implemented to identify whether a site in front of a school-gate is safe for child pedestrians. As the SCPD estimated in each of these case studies was found to be higher than the available curb parking distance, all of these sites were identified as 'unsafe'.