Non-touch Pedestrian Crossing

[the cheesecake man]

At this junction in Chesterfield I encountered new pedestrian crossings which do not require you to press the button

Has anyone else seen any? Are these the future?

Why did these get turned sideways?

[jnty]

I assume this was a Covid thing, but people don't generally seem to care much about touching things in public any more, so I doubt it'll proliferate much more.

We already have non-touch pedestrian crossing controls to some degree in the sense that puffin crossings can theoretically detect when you walk away and cancel a button press. Presumably it wouldn't be hard to trigger a button press if a static presence by the crossing was detected, but I'm not sure anywhere does. (The fact that we have use this technology to cancel pedestrian crossing demands rather than trigger them, and the near-universal assumption that pedestrian crossing lights should default to green for traffic, probably says a lot about the implicit priorities followed in road design...)

[Conekicker]

At this junction in Chesterfield I encountered new pedestrian crossings which do not require you to press the button
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Has anyone else seen any? Are these the future?

Why did these get turned sideways?

I'd be more concerned that this doesn't seem to be authorised, it's certainly not in TSRGD. Unless they have been authorised and the website hasn't been updated yet, there's no mention of this equipment here:
https://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-auths/

[the cheesecake man]

I assume this was a Covid thing, but people don't generally seem to care much about touching things in public any more, so I doubt it'll proliferate much more.

I wondered that but if so it's three years late hence a complete waste of money.

[jnty]

I assume this was a Covid thing, but people don't generally seem to care much about touching things in public any more, so I doubt it'll proliferate much more.

I wondered that but if so it's three years late hence a complete waste of money.

One assumes that the buttons were obtained or at least procured during Covid and switching back to a normal button unit at the point where it was clearly no longer necessary would have cost more.

[paranoid]

These seem to be standard in Glasgow now. They don't work brilliantly, I think it's fair to say.

[traffic-light-man]

Some places are installing these new, not necessarily procured during Covid, and they did actual exist before Covid as an accessibility improvement. I think the majority of Blackburn's pre-dated Covid.

They usually piggy-back on regular push button arrangements so from a traffic signal equipment point of view don't require anything specific, the push button units themselves are just the regular ones supplied by AGD Systems or Yunex. I don't believe they work with Plus+ push buttons from the Blue corner, though, because that's a specialised push button in its own right and doesn't have the usual innards.

They're easy to disconnect, just by, err, disconnecting them.

IME, they're incredibly prone to placing permanent demands when it rains.

I'd be more concerned that this doesn't seem to be authorised, it's certainly not in TSRGD. Unless they have been authorised and the website hasn't been updated yet, there's no mention of this equipment here:
https://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-auths/

No, but the manufacturers are absolutely insistent that the signs and stickers must be installed - they've even 'spoken' with the Department, apparently Having said that, I don't know how you'd know it was contactless if there wasn't a sign so I'll accept it needs something, but there's a right way and wrong way - it's the stickers on the push buttons that offend me most.

Presumably it wouldn't be hard to trigger a button press if a static presence by the crossing was detected, but I'm not sure anywhere does.

I believe Southampton did this during Covid. Easy to do if you have kerbside detectors and the controller is configured to support that operation. The detector is dumb (in most cases), on if there's something there, off if there isn't, the 'what happens' is done in the controller. That sort of operation is increasingly common with cycle phases, too, where there is a fall-back push button installed as well as the detector.

[Nathan_A_RF]

Indeed some of the junctions reconstructed/refurbished in recent years in Southampton have sensors that trigger a demand for a pedestrian phase:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.91878 ... ?entry=ttu
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.93599 ... ?entry=ttu

(URL on sign reads https://smart-technology.org.uk/)

There's also a staggered toucan crossing that automatically triggers a demand to cross for the second crossing once a pedestrian/cyclist has crossed the first:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.92346 ... ?entry=ttu

[Conekicker]

Some places are installing these new, not necessarily procured during Covid, and they did actual exist before Covid as an accessibility improvement. I think the majority of Blackburn's pre-dated Covid.

They usually piggy-back on regular push button arrangements so from a traffic signal equipment point of view don't require anything specific, the push button units themselves are just the regular ones supplied by AGD Systems or Yunex. I don't believe they work with Plus+ push buttons from the Blue corner, though, because that's a specialised push button in its own right and doesn't have the usual innards.

They're easy to disconnect, just by, err, disconnecting them.

IME, they're incredibly prone to placing permanent demands when it rains.

I'd be more concerned that this doesn't seem to be authorised, it's certainly not in TSRGD. Unless they have been authorised and the website hasn't been updated yet, there's no mention of this equipment here:
https://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-auths/

No, but the manufacturers are absolutely insistent that the signs and stickers must be installed - they've even 'spoken' with the Department, apparently Having said that, I don't know how you'd know it was contactless if there wasn't a sign so I'll accept it needs something, but there's a right way and wrong way - it's the stickers on the push buttons that offend me most.

Presumably it wouldn't be hard to trigger a button press if a static presence by the crossing was detected, but I'm not sure anywhere does.

I believe Southampton did this during Covid. Easy to do if you have kerbside detectors and the controller is configured to support that operation. The detector is dumb (in most cases), on if there's something there, off if there isn't, the 'what happens' is done in the controller. That sort of operation is increasingly common with cycle phases, too, where there is a fall-back push button installed as well as the detector.

Well that's jolly nice of the manufacturers to insist but absent authorisation, they are unlawful. Roll out the bog-standard smart lawyer the first time a pedestrian gets injured or killed at one of these facilities? Yet another case of an officer falling for the manufacturers sales pitch? Tut tut.

[FosseWay]

I assume this was a Covid thing, but people don't generally seem to care much about touching things in public any more, so I doubt it'll proliferate much more.

Even during covid, I'm not sure how much actual evidence there was for transmission via surfaces in this kind of context. Firstly, if you're worried about hygiene when you're out and about (and IME that worry is much more relevant for D&V-type illnesses than covid, flu etc.), you make sure you wash your hands when you get to your destination. I'm not sure it particularly helps to avoid the need to press one button when on an average journey you're going to touch doors, bags, parts of a bus, you name it. Secondly, specifically for covid and other airborne diseases, it may or may not be possible to transfer enough virus via buttons, door handles etc. to cause illness, but it's undisputed that you're far, far more likely to catch or spread infection by breathing (and coughing/sneezing) in the vicinity of other people. But measures that result in people simply not being somewhere if they're going to spread unpleasant diseases are so much less visible, and therefore so much less demonstrative of Something Being Done, than making physical changes to buttons etc. that have a marginal benefit, if that.

On the other hand, if not needing to press a physical button improves accessibility to sectors of the public with specific difficulties, then technology like this is worth pursuing, so long as it can be made reasonably error-free (see the comments about rain above).

We already have non-touch pedestrian crossing controls to some degree in the sense that puffin crossings can theoretically detect when you walk away and cancel a button press. Presumably it wouldn't be hard to trigger a button press if a static presence by the crossing was detected, but I'm not sure anywhere does. (The fact that we have use this technology to cancel pedestrian crossing demands rather than trigger them, and the near-universal assumption that pedestrian crossing lights should default to green for traffic, probably says a lot about the implicit priorities followed in road design...)

I get where you're coming from here and agree with your underlying criticism of the general vehicle-centred attitude that has given rise to these crossings. But I'd be wary of a one-size-fits-all solution. Sometimes it makes more sense for the crossing to default to green for pedestrians; sometimes for cars. It depends on the relative flows involved.

As a pedestrian, it doesn't particularly bother me to have to press a button to activate a crossing. It also doesn't bother me if I have to wait a short period before I get green if the crossing has only just been activated and it's necessary to let the traffic flow a bit - providing there's some traffic there in the first place. One of my bugbears as a pedestrian, cyclist, bus passenger and driver is the amount of time spent waiting for red lights to go green when there's no-one using the conflicting movement that's got green. This is especially relevant for pedestrians and cyclists, whose size and manoeuvrability inevitably mean that people will override what the lights are telling them and make their own decisions. If there's no traffic coming when I press the button, there's no reason why it shouldn't give me the green man more or less immediately.

In terms of the accessibility of the button to its intended users, this is often more of a problem for cyclists than pedestrians (at least able-bodied pedestrians; it may be different for wheelchair users, for example). Because I don't have gorilla arms, in order to reach the button mounted on the same pole as the traffic lights, my front wheel has to cross the notional stop line (often simply the kerb line). And this presupposes that I approach the crossing at 90 degrees to the roadway that I'm crossing, which is far from universal, given the extremely tight turn radii that cyclists are expected to use in cases where you're crossing a roadway that you're travelling parallel to. It also represents a greater saving in time and energy for a cyclist not to have to come to a complete stop before getting green than it does for a pedestrian.

So, if there is a benefit to advance detection of NMUs wanting to cross roads at controlled crossings, it may be most tangible for cyclists. It may also be easier to accurately predict whether an approaching cyclist is actually intending to cross than it is with pedestrians, since the number of possible (legal) routes an approaching cyclist can take is generally more limited.

[jnty]

I get where you're coming from here and agree with your underlying criticism of the general vehicle-centred attitude that has given rise to these crossings. But I'd be wary of a one-size-fits-all solution. Sometimes it makes more sense for the crossing to default to green for pedestrians; sometimes for cars. It depends on the relative flows involved.

Of course - exactly the same as with roads. Sometimes you're dealing with an evenly balanced crossroads; sometimes the main route might have fifty times the traffic of the side road. A crossing for a lightly used rural path at 6am in winter is a totally different beast to a city centre crossing at rush hour. But, as you say, the "one-size-fits-all" defaults still often chosen for these crossings are very telling.

[Bryn666]

The Neatebox variants of these (which Blackburn trialled, not sure if the test site still works) were first used in Scotland so if any approvals were granted I suspect they were up there first. I wasn't privy to any conversations between the DfT and BwD on the subject, but I do know that some conversations existed somewhere, and knowing that some of the peeps down there will put their "bad" ear to a phone if you're doing something they can't be seen to condone but might agree with........

https://www.theiet.org/media/2323/ssd14 ... dy-v19.pdf

Given most pedestrian crossings fail the reasonable adjustment test thanks to absolutely shocking placement of push buttons and uneven tactiles/misleading central island layouts I suspect a smart lawyer would have a field day using the Equalities Act to hammer local authorities with well before they got to the technical arguments of whether or not DfT Towers actually authorised a bluetooth add-on to a push button unit. These issues will kill someone well before the extra sign will.