Across Europe pedestrian crossings differ significantly. European citizens should be ready to encounter a wide diversity of design solutions for such crossings when travelling abroad. This is the principle result to come out of the EuroTest "pedestrian crossing assessment programme".

For the first time ever, ACI (Automobile Club d'Italia) and its partner clubs tested pedestrian crossings within the scope of EuroTest, the international test programme involving 18 European automobile clubs from17 countries. In Zurich, for instance, yellow is used for the markings on zebra crossings. In Berlin and Munich, none of the crossings tested used the zebra striped road markings. The diverse solutions offered by pedestrian traffic lights also is another critical finding revealed by this test.

Each year in Europe more than 8.000 pedestrians are killed in road accidents. Almost one in four happens on a pedestrian crossing, a place theoretically meant to allow for a safe crossing. This startling situation is what prompted the EuroTEST partners to examine pedestrian safety in European starting with a focus of attention on the assessment of these critical intersections between pedestrians and vehicles.

The test results permit a comparison of the different solutions pedestrian crossings adopted throughout Europe. The goal of this benchmarking exercise is to foster improvement of the worst situations encountered. Indeed the infrastructure and equipment used to perform the same functions are managed in highly different ways across Europe's different cities. So variable were the uses of markings, traffic light times and traffic signs encountered on pedestrian crossings that a call for minimum standardisation is urgently needed.

In total 215 pedestrian crossings were tested in 17 of Europe's main cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Ljubljana, London, Madrid, Munich, Oslo, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, Wien, Zagreb, Zurich.

For each city, a minimum of 12 crossings were inspected with a view to encompass all the possible kinds of crossings belonging to the well defined selected areas. The inspections were performed in the field by technical experts from ACI. Each crossing was tested during the day and at night. The safety of each pedestrian crossing was assessed and evaluated, taking into account their unique characteristics in terms of spatial and temporal design, daylight visibility, night-time visibility, accessibility for all the road users. A complex indicator was developed to assess the safety level of each crossing.

The results
The overall results showed that 28 crossings out of 215 (one in eight) failed the test, achieving a "poor" rating. Just more than half crossings (118) were rated positively, of which only two crossings were "very good". The ranking is completed by the 69 crossings which achieved an "Acceptable" rating.

The worst crossing was found in Brussels, Europe's political capital, the city where many of the most important European Institutions involved in road safety are located. The losing pedestrian crossing number "04" is without traffic lights and located at the intersection between Rue Lesbroussart and Rue Van Elewyckstraat close to the cities major shopping street Avenue Louise.. This pedestrian crossing failed the test completely, achieving a negative rating in all the safety categories, with particularly bad criticisms regarding the "daytime visibility" and "accessibility" indicators. Other reasons why this pedestrian crossing earned this poor rating included the presence of parked vehicles behind the crossing, to the insufficient sight distance for the turning vehicles, and to a residual step of 8 cm on both the access sides of the sidewalks. The bad results of Brussels' crossings are confirmed by the presence of four crossings among the five worst crossings (the worst three crossings were found in Brussels).

The tests best rated pedestrian crossing is located in London at the intersection between Tothill street and Storey's gate (crossing n°. 4). Despite not having traffic lights this crossing, has a very well designed layout, the presence of a crossing island earned it a very good rating in the spatial and temporal design category. The use of additional road markings together with zebra stripes proved to be highly efficient both to prevent vehicles from parking near the crossings and to give oncoming drivers an optical effect inducing them to slow down. The use of special lighting devices (orange beacons and illuminated poles) is the reason for the "Very Good" rating also in the "Visibility NIGHTTIME" category. Accessibility for all the road users was optimal, thanks to the presence of ground-level curbs, tactile paths and acoustic devices. The special care adopted in the design of the general layout design as well as in each single detail, earns this crossing "London 04" the banner of "Very best practice" of the year. Indeed it should be considered as a reference for the future development of safety improvements all over Europe. London can also boast of having six pedestrian crossings featured in the top ten list.

As all the 215 crossings were clustered into 5 rating classes, ranging from Very Poor to Very Good, it was very interesting to evaluate and compare 17 cities, based on the number of crossings belonging to each rating class. London was confirmed as the best city due to the number of positively rated crossings. Only two crossings were rated this year as "very good" both were found in London; a further 11 crossings were categorised as "good", with only one crossing over into the negative range. Oslo and Copenhagen followed London with 11 and 9 crossings respectively featuring in the positive field of "good".

At the opposite end of the ranking scale again Brussels could boast only three crossings in the positive class, followed by Rome and Munich with only four "good" crossings each.

The great variability in the results achieve is also to point out. In all the cities, the assessment methodology gave rise to very heterogeneous ratings, more or less across all 17 cities. In this regard, the highest degree of variability was found in Berlin and Brussels, with ratings ranging from poor to good. Conversely, Oslo showed the most concentrated scorings, thus giving its average good rating a higher validation. Barcelona and Zurich scores also presented low degrees of variability, although around different average city results (better for Zurich than for Barcelona).

Spatial and temporal design: can I make it?

This safety category which includes all features related to the spatial and temporal design, threw up some of the most critical results: almost one third of the tested crossings failed to achieve a sufficient rating in this category, due to several weaknesses in the terms of efficient traffic lights (i.e. staying red for too long red, remaining green or in a transition phase for a too short period), absence of pedestrian refuge islands in long crossings, pedestrian green phases which were not exclusively for pedestrians, the number of conflict points between pedestrians and vehicles, etc. The best crossing in this field were found in Ljubljana (crossing n. 08), followed by Madrid (n. 01) and Copenhagen (n. 07). The worst examples were found in Ljubljana (crossing n. 10 and 01), followed by Zagreb (n. 06).

Day-time visibility: did they notice me?

Berlin n. 12

As regards daytime visibility, again London performed the best with 9 crossings in the top 10 list of this special ranking. The banner for most visible crossings was awarded to the crossings "London 06"and "London 04", due to the very well maintained condition of the traffic signs, road markings as well as the absence of obstacles in the proximity of the crossings ensuring adequate sight distance between drivers and pedestrians. The presence of special road marking indicating the directions of oncoming traffic (Look right, look left), also enhance London's score in this category. Only Oslo, with crossing n. 08 succeeded in joining the top 10 list (at 9th position). At the opposite end of this ranking scale, Berlin's non-signalized crossing n. 12 scored the worst, due to the presence of parked vehicles on both the sides of the crosswalk, obstructing the sight distance between drivers and pedestrians. Brussels crossings n. 08, 09 and 04 follow closely behind on this worst in class list due to the same failing (i.e. obscuring by parked cars).

Night-time visibility: did they see me?
Visibility at night is one of the most important requirements for safe pedestrian crossings. This category carried the heaviest weighting in the evaluation process (weighting by 41%). Unfortunately, more than 18% of the tested crossings were negatively rated in this field, with 37 rated "poor" and two rated as "very poor". This year in the night test, the ACI inspectors found the best visibility solutions to be in Copenhagen (crossings n. 12 and 04) and London (crossing n. 09 and the well known n. 04). Very good street lighting, excellent road marking conditions and traffic signing were all in evidence. In the case of London, the presence of special lighting devices (orange beacons) and the demarcation of pedestrian islands (with illuminated poles) were the reason for these excellent results. Ranked at the bottom of this night time visibility list were two, "very poor" crossings, both found in Berlin. The worst crossing n. 11, has no traffic lights and its bad result night visibility test result was due essentially to the insufficient street lighting, poor visibility caused by the absence of any road markings and moreover, parked vehicles even obstructed sight distance between pedestrians willing to cross and approaching vehicles.

Copenhagen n. 09

London n. 04

Berlin n. 11

Accessibility: can all users go through it?
All users should be able to make use a pedestrian crossing without putting their life at serious risk. This was one of the most sensitive criteria in the development of the assessment methodology. Therefore in this safety category, the inspectors checked the presence of the most common devices and measures for allowing all users to access and safely cross the street (dropped or ground level kerbs, tactile paving and acoustic devices for visually impaired people, presence of obstacles like parked vehicles, utility poles, signs, holes, that could be a hazard for approaching pedestrians or pushing them to cross outside the crossings, Kerb width). More than 17% of the tested crossings could not achieve an acceptable rating in the accessibility assessment: 28 crossing were rated as "poor" and nine as "very poor". Seven crossings scored at the top of this special list: three of them are found in Zurich (n. 01, 02, 03), two were found in Berlin (crossing n. 07 and 12), one in Vienna (n. 06) and one in Madrid (n. 11). At the other end of the scale, crossing n.02b tested in Rome merited the poorest score in the accessibility assessment. There were no devices for visually impaired people nor for disabled people (wheelchairs, etc.), hard obstacles obstruct the access to the cross walk for all the users, the presence of a parked bicycle made the assessment even worse.

Berlin n. 07	Tactile crossing scheme widely adopted in Vienna
Rome n. 02b - poorest European crossing for accessibility	Barcelona n. 10      Ljubljana n. 02
Madrid n. 03

Conclusion: improvements needed for a safer behaviour
The result of this first year's test of pedestrian crossings leaves much room for concern. In the same cities, good examples of crossing live alongside those with poor conditions. Very often, even well equipped crossings, were indeed penalized by the presence (legal or not legal) of parked vehicles just behind them. Accessibility to all the users needs to be enhanced, as too many poor examples were found in this field especially with regards to the needs of disabled people. This may create very dangerous situations as poor accessibility can lead to unsafe behaviour.

Even though the tested areas selected were generally located in the "good living" areas of the city centres, too few really exemplary crossings were found and there were too many that were barely acceptable. In the case of 28 "Poor" crossings, a safety review would be urgently needed.

European travellers should also be informed of the wide degree of variation in the design solutions (road markings, colours, traffic light rules) for pedestrian crossing, in order to be better prepared to face a crosswalk as a tourist pedestrian abroad, which is not definitely a child's play!