Evaluating the Effectiveness of "Turning Traffic Must Yield to Pedestrians (R 10-15)" Sign

The countermeasure "Turning traffic must yield to pedestrians" (Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) code sign R10-15) is used to address problems such as pedestrians not waiting for signals or an acceptable gap before crossing the streets resulting in conflicts between right turning vehicles and pedestrians. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of this installation. Various measures of effectiveness (MOEs) were identified. These MOEs are pedestrian / vehicle conflict, presence of pedestrians in the crosswalk during the flashing DON'T WALK and during the all red, percent of vehicles blocking the crosswalk, percent of right turn on red drivers coming to a complete stop, percent of turning drivers yielding to pedestrians, percent of pedestrians who look at the start of WALK signal for turning vehicles, pedestrian delay, and vehicle delay. The study site is Harmon Avenue / Paradise Road intersection located in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. A "before-and-after" data collection strategy was applied to test any significant difference in the identified MOEs between the two study periods. Data were collected during AM and PM peak hours. Statistical tests, test for two proportions and two-sample t-test, were used to test the significance of differences in MOEs during the two study periods. The result shows that motorists yielding behavior while turning either on red or green increased during the after study period. A significant reduction was observed in vehicles blocking the crosswalk while a significant increase in vehicles stopped completely before turning on red (P < 0.001). Average pedestrian delay increased during the after study period from 44 sec/pedestrian to 61 sec/pedestrian whereas the average vehicle delay increased from 67 sec/vehicle to 76 sec/vehicle. The installation of R10-15 effective increases the yielding behavior of turning traffic at green in presence of pedestrians which also leads to increase in both pedestrian and vehicle delay.