A new style of pedestrian crossing is being trialled in Liverpool.

This is the UK’s first nudge-behaviour trial. Eye-catching designs at two collision hot-spots – Hanover Street/ Bold Street in the city centre and one at East Prescot Road in the Old Swan area of the city – have been installed.

The trials will run for two weeks. It comes at a time when cities are seeing a huge rise in footfall post Covid lockdown restrictions.

Liverpool and Hull are the chosen hosts for the experiment. These have some of the highest rates of adult deaths or serious injuries (KSIs) for pedestrian collisions. These trials in Liverpool form part of a wider strategy devised by the council and road safety partners.

Undoing danger

One of thew UK’s most dangerous pedestrian crossings is that found at Liverpool’s Hanover Street location. This has seen the introduction of what is know locally as the ‘Compli Crossing’. Inspired by pop-art, it features a series of multi-coloured nudges to attract pedestrian attention.

The crossing bisects two pedestrianised areas – Church Street and Bold Street. the area has a huge daily and nightly footfall, perfect for running the trials. Meanwhile, the second site at Old Swan has deployed the use of a “faster boarding” system. This makes the crossing more noticeable to people looking to get to where they are going in the fastest, most direct way possible. Crossing wait times have also been reduced giving pedestrians priority over cars.

Radical designs

The innovative designs are the creation of  So-Mo, a behavioural science company based in the North West. They follow an in-depth insight study into pedestrian behaviour in the urban environment. The designs were brought to life in collaboration with Liverpool based designers Smiling Wolf and were developed in consultation with disability groups.

Ultimately the only way to test them is through on-street trials. The experiences of different road user groups are being monitored throughout. Pedestrians with disabilities and neurological conditions will be of particular interest to the research.

Supported by the Road Safety Trust, it uses funds raised from speeding fines, along with additional funding from Merseyside Road Safety Partnership.

Aims

The specific aims of the trials are to determine if the interventions encourage pedestrians to adopt “safe behaviours”, measured by :

•             An increase in the number of crossings made inside the crossing area

•             An increase in the number of pedestrians using the crossing correctly

The Hanover/ Bold/ Church Street location has a high collision rate in the evening and throughout the night with casualties made up of pedestrians enjoying a night out. The site has witnessed 14 adult casualties in five years.

Looking ahead

“One in five of all adult pedestrian casualties happening close to pedestrian crossings”, states Councillor Dan Barrington, Cabinet member for Transport and Climate Change. “It’s a problem we’ve been tackling and have had some success with over the past decade, but we need to be radical to make the progress we all want.”

Dan describes the crossings as “looking at the whole picture – the environment, the location, behaviour”. He hopes they will “change the public’s approach to the crossings”.

Nicola Wass, Chief Executive of So-Mo, describes the project as an “imaginative, intelligent approach to road safety”. She says the crossings are “designed with deeper understanding of the people who use them, and the problems they face”.