Determination of a suitable level of service method to measure service quality of pedestrian walkways in Dhaka city

Abstract

This study examined five widely used pedestrian Level of Service procedures to determine which of these five could best represent the service quality conditions of pedestrian facilities in Dhaka City. The five pedestrian Level of Service procedures were Australian method, Highway Capacity Manual method, Trip Quality Method, Landis method, and Tan Dandan method. Five study sites were selected considering the adjacent land uses. Each of these five study sites was then divided into five segments, giving a total of 25 study segments and each having a length of 100 m. Field data collected at the study sites were used to determine the level of service using each of the five selected level of service methods. These objective measurements of level of services were then compared with the subjective ratings provided by the 50 study subjects employed in this study. The comparison revealed that the Australian method scored 18 points out of a maximum of 25 points, and therefore, could be considered to represent the best service quality of Dhaka City walkways. The Trip Quality method was the second best with a score of 16.0 points, followed by Landis method and Tan Dandan method with a score of 11 and 9 respectively, and Highway Capacity Manual method (5.5). In addition to that, a separate survey was conducted among over 400 pedestrians to determine which service quality attributes they prefer most. It was found that majority of the pedestrians opined that the following eight factors had direct impact on the level of service of walkwayswidth, surface condition, obstruction on walkway, presence of designated roadway crossing facilities, buffer zone between walkway and traffic lane, presence of bicycle and/or motorcycle over walkways, walkway lighting, and queue of trees along the walkway. The Australian method contained seven of these eight most influential factors while the Trip Quality method contained three. It was suggested, therefore, that the Australian method of level of service determination was the most representative of Dhaka conditions.