Michigan Department of Transportation’s (MDOT) Research Program Development Meetings has selected smart lighting for crosswalks to reduce pedestrian crashes for research in 2023. This is part of a three-year program 2023-2025 covering 14 unique categories. MDOT believes these meetings provide a vital opportunity for university partners, MDOT staff, and transportation stakeholders with common research interests to network, identify research gaps and opportunities, collaborate, and discuss research that addresses the department’s strategic priorities. In the Transportation Safety category, three submitted ideas were selected for research.
Improved crosswalk lighting may be one way to decrease pedestrian crashes at night. Although street lighting is available at or near crosswalk or intersection locations, it does not always illuminate pedestrians in the crosswalks. Pedestrian safety is a priority for MDOT and the traffic safety community across the state. Because of this, it is important to address the high proportion of pedestrian crashes that occur in conditions with inadequate lighting and how MDOT can better illuminate crosswalks to identify crosswalk users,
Research to begin January 2023 and complete by August 2024.
Research objectives include:
- Determine what type of lighting is needed at crosswalks to identify pedestrians that can be seen by a vehicle
- Determine what is the best way to accomplish this
- At present only one vendor is offering smart lighting solutions for crosswalks. Positive data on the efficacy of this approach should stimulate development of more products
- Potentially examine new prototypes and their effectiveness on crosswalk lighting
For more information on the Research Program Development Meetings, check out our new video that explains our process.