Monday, May 04, 2009
Hutt City Council is carrying out the first New Zealand trial of the ‘Puffin’ pedestrian crossing.
Puffins (Pedestrian User Friendly Intelligent Crossings) are used widely in the UK and in some states in Australia. They have the ‘red and green man’ signal on the near side rather than the far side of the road. This means pedestrians waiting to cross have to look to their right and into the face of the approaching traffic. They are also easier for partially sighted pedestrians to see.
Puffins use only a green man signal meaning ‘cross now’ and a solid red man signal meaning ‘wait’. This eliminates the confusing ‘flashing red man’ signal that leads many pedestrians to enter the roadway at the wrong time on traditional crossings.
Overseas experience is that Puffins are better understood by pedestrians and therefore safer for all road users, and they cost no more than a traditional crossing. Motorists won’t notice any change.
The Puffin crossing is being installed at the crossing in Railway Avenue, outside Hutt Central School and will be operating from this Friday. The trial involves collecting data on pedestrian behaviour prior to the Puffin’s installation and afterwards.
Puffins offer additional features including allowing the pedestrian crossing time to be varied to allow safe crossing time for slower pedestrians or reduced crossing time for fast lone pedestrians, and a call cancellation option. The variable timing feature is not part of the current trial which focuses on the near side display feature. It may be trialled later if the near side display trial shows the Puffin leads to safer pedestrian crossing behaviour.