PEDESTRIAN VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS USING QUANTUM GIS

Traffic and transportation problems in large and medium sized cities of many developing countries have become grave matters of concern to the planning and administration. Growing population with rapid increase of heterogeneous traffic constrained by limited transport infrastructure facilities and by the encroachment of footpath results in increase of pedestrian vulnerability. Geographic Information System has proved to be a powerful tool for urban transport planning. It helps to improve the decision making process and necessitates an efficient, feasible and faster means of transportation and traffic planning. A study on the vulnerability of road users can be made use of in obtaining at a conclusion that a certain amount of area is at high risk or at low risk depending upon the obstructions in the footpath which makes the pedestrians to walk on the road. In this study, the pedestrian volume count, traffic volume count and accident data for certain road networks have been analyzed and the vulnerability of the pedestrians has been obtained. Quantum GIS software package is user friendly and easy for the analysis operation. Vulnerable zones are identified with the help of field data incorporated in the software which shows the areas prone to high and low risk of accidents. With the help of the results obtained, one could easily identify the areas of vulnerability and act accordingly.