Assessment of Pedestrian Walking Speed Through the Religious Occasions in Iraq

Abstract

The design of safe pedestrian facilities usually depends on assessment of pedestrian characteristics and behavior. In this investigation, pedestrian walking speed through the religious occasion has been monitored at three locations: Al-Kadhimiya (Imam Al-Kadim), Najaf, and Karbala (Imam Al-Husain) holy shrines. Video captures of the pedestrians through their walking to the two holy shrines have been prepared and analyzed for walking speed, gender, age groups, and clothing tradition. The pedestrian sample sizes are 468, 501, and 447 for Al-Kadhimiya, Karbala, and Najaf, respectively. When the gender is taken into consideration, it can be noted that the walking speeds of male and female pedestrians are (0.97, 1.68, and 1.63) and (0.82, 1.46, and 1.48) m/sec for Al-Kadhimiya, Karbala, and Najaf, respectively. When the cloth tradition is considered, female pedestrians wearing Arabic style are slower than male by 9% for Karbala and Najaf, and 3% for Al-Kadhimiya. On the other hand, when age groups are considered, the elder pedestrians are slower in walking by 6% regardless of the gender and location. It was recommended that the restricted walking path at Al-Kadhimiya could be improved to control the jam density of pedestrians and increase the walking speed to its standard limit.