Sidewalks Management System to Increase Safety for Elderly Pedestrians

When planning pedestrian facilities, comfort is a major requirement. Pedestrians decide to walk where they feel comfortable, and when they do not feel at ease, they detour from their route towards more comfortable ones. A typical example is represented by filthy, distressed or too narrow sidewalks which induce pedestrians to walk on the carriageways. This kind of behaviors becomes extremely unsafe on routes usually walked by senior pedestrians, due to their vulnerability. Unsuitable pavements are due to two kinds of problems: on the one hand, irregularity of maintenance operations to restore evenness conditions after damages from shocks, weather phenomena or due to the installation of equipment (posts, fences, urban furniture, etc.) which limit the availability of walkable surface; on the other, substandard execution of the pavements, whose patches are evidence of emergency operations. These problems can be solved with an appropriate maintenance management system: the choice of the adequate type as well as the timeliness of maintenance works can optimize the always limited resources of the roads managers. The paper deals with a methodology of Sidewalks Management System (SMS) derived from the most-known Road Management System. The method foresees survey, classification and analysis of sidewalk distresses, adapting an index that is already standardized by ASTM for Roads and Airports: the PCI – Pavement Condition Index. PCI is modified to consider the specific types of distresses surveyed on the sidewalks. In this study, only sidewalks flexible pavements are considered. To validate the procedure a case study was performed at a residential district in Rome, where the lack of regular maintenance resulted into a network of unsafe sidewalks. Usual detours were surveyed and related to the level of distresses linked to the assessment of safety for elderly pedestrians.