1. IICSD-2015 Page 1
International Conference on Recent Innovation in Civil Engineering for Sustainable
Development(IICSD-2015)
Department of Civil Engineering
DUET - Gazipur, Bangladesh
A Survey Study For User Attributes On Foot Over Bridges In Perspective Of Dhaka
City
A. Das1
and S. Barua2
Abstract
Safe roads for pedestrian is a popular catchword now-a-days. During next twenty years,
pedestrian in Dhaka city will be a serious headache to the city planners. Among several road
user groups; Pedestrians are most vulnerable, on the contrary, they are less prioritized.
Pedestrians are the victim of most fatality and casualty occurred in Dhaka city. Like other mega
cities, pedestrian volume here is very high and it is very densely—especially in peak hours.
Many foot over bridges have already been constructed at different locations in the city to solve
pedestrian-vehicle conflict at busy roads. However, number of foot over bridges in Dhaka are
negligible comparing to huge pedestrian demand. In this study, questioner surveys will be
conducted to investigate performance of existing foot over bridge facilities and possible causes
of people’s reluctance to the use of foot over bridges will be tried to identify. Several issues or
key factors will be incorporated in the survey form and people will be allowed to fill up those
voluntarily. Results of the survey will be compared to some common attributes of people’s
reluctance using foot over bridges like inconvenience, unawareness of the risk in crossing the
street, poor accessibility, congested foot over bridges, lack of security, time consuming and bad
surroundings. Usually these are the common reasons that foot over bridges remain under-served
and become ineffective to meet public demand. In this research, major problems associated with
foot over bridges and its overall performances will be assessed. Later, a regression model will
be suggested to identify attributes regarding pedestrian foot over bridges. These key factors can
be taken under consideration for future planning of pedestrian facilities. Proper planning will
make foot over bridges more popular and feasible to meet huge pedestrian demand. In addition,
pedestrian-vehicle related accidents will be reduced significantly.
Keywords: foot over bridge, pedestrian, pedestrian facilities, questioner survey, regression model
1. Introduction
Dhaka City Corporation has constructed number of foot over bridges to avoid vehicle
pedestrian conflict and smooth flow of both without interruptions. One of the purpose of the
foot over bridges are to ensure safe road crossing facility for the pedestrian. However, most of
these foot over bridges are not in appropriate place and some of these are not usable.
Moreover the people are accustomed to disobey the traffic regulation, there are no strict rules
and the people have little time to use foot over bridges. As a result, pedestrian accident,
fatalities are increasing over times and pedestrian interruption the smooth vehicular flow in
some busiest intersections. The research tried to find out the attributes behind the ignoring of
traffic laws by taking interview of pedestrians. After studying attributes of foot over bridge
usage for a month, a lot of data and exclusive information are found. Later, the information
has been examined by statistical analysis.
1
Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Information Technology and Sciences
(UITS), Dhaka – 1212, Bangladesh, anikdas.buet@gmail.com
2
Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Information Technology and Sciences
(UITS), Dhaka – 1212, Bangladesh, sauravbarua02@gmail.com
Paper ID: TE-009

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2. Literature Review
A footbridge is a bridge designed for pedestrians rather than vehicular traffic. Footbridges are
located across roads to let pedestrians cross safely without slowing down the traffic—
particularly found near intersections, educational institutions and hospitals to help prevent
people running in front of moving cars. Several researches have been conducted on pedestrian
movement safety and foot over bridges. A survey conducted by Dhaka City Corporation
(DCC) in 2006 found that pedestrians in Dhaka city are reluctant to use foot over bridge while
crossing the roads rather than they prefer to across the roads though they have the access to
use nearby [1]. The Centre for Urban Studies has conducted a research on the usage of the
foot over bridges in Dhaka city and focused on pedestrian behavior [2]. M.M. Haque and H.
M. Ahsan identified pedestrian as most vulnerable group for accident in Dhaka city [3]. A
study conducted by A. Rubayat and N. Sultana found that less than 50% people do not use
foot over bridge [4]. S.K. Mitra et al. analyzed behavioral pattern of the pedestrian towards
following traffic rule in crossing a road [5]. D. M. Sabet suggested that improved
infrastructure, law enforcement, and educational campaigns can increase pedestrians’ interest
to use foot over bridges [6].
3. User Attributes of Foot Over Bridges
Despite high levels of pedestrian fatalities, pedestrians often dodge cars, hold out their hands
to stop oncoming traffic while crossing the street. Unlawful cross walking is not a legal
offense in Bangladesh. Crosswalks are often unmarked, lack of walk indicator lights and there
is no time period when it could be considered safe to cross the street in many intersections.
Though foot over bridges are active countermeasures and have safety benefits; those are far
from a perfect solution to pedestrian safety problems. Many perceived that foot over bridges
as insecure, dirty, subject to long detour and require too much effort. Different aspects of foot
over bridges are also considered, such as level of convenience and surrounding environment.
4. Research Method
The research design focused on pedestrian behavior to test these different attributes including
overall condition assessment of foot over bridges. The research focused on busy intersections,
each with a foot over bridge and each without a safe means to cross the street without using
the footbridges. Such as— Banani, Mirpur, Farmgate, Bangla Motor, Uttara and Notun Bazar.
Questions of the survey form was simple and based on tick marks mostly so that respondents
can easily understand. The questions of the form was prepared by following researches
conducted by Center for Urban studies, Dhaka [2]. Collected data were unbiased to gender,
race, age and professions.
5. Data Collection
Total 143 nos. questionnaire survey were collected from different locations in Dhaka city.
Respondents were asked to rank the attributes based on their perception. These were strongly
agree, agree, not agree or disagree, disagree and strongly disagree which were numerically
ranked one to five respectively. For overall condition of foot over bridge, the condition was
ranked as very poor, poor, fair, good and excellent with one to five marking respectively.
Questions and the responses are mentioned in the following Table 1.

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Table-1. Respondents’ data
Reasons not
using foot over
bridges
Responses
Strongly
agree
Agree
Not agree or
disagree
Disagree
Strongly
disagree
Foot over bridges
are time
consuming.
N 39 50 26 16 12
% 27.27% 34.97% 18.18% 11.19% 8.39%
Foot over bridges
are too high
N 30 45 29 28 11
% 20.98% 31.47% 20.28% 19.58% 7.69%
Foot over bridges
are occupied by
hawker
N 89 24 13 4 13
% 62.24% 16.78% 9.09% 2.80% 9.09%
Foot over bridges
have lack of
security
N 65 46 16 3 13
% 45.45% 32.17% 11.19% 2.10% 9.09%
Foot over bridges
take a long walk
N 43 43 36 11 10
% 30.07% 30.07% 25.17% 7.69% 6.99%
Foot over bridges
have poor entry
access
N 50 47 31 7 8
% 34.97% 32.87% 21.68% 4.90% 5.59%
Foot over bridges
are congested
N 45 55 24 14 5
% 31.47% 38.46% 16.78% 9.79% 3.50%
Feel uneasy to
use foot over
bridge
N 36 44 30 20 13
% 25.17% 30.77% 20.98% 13.99% 9.09%
Foot over
bridge look dirty
and lack of
cleanness
N 70 35 21 10 7
% 48.95% 24.48% 14.69% 6.99% 4.90%
Foot over bridge
are in
inappropriate
position
N 37 46 32 13 15
% 25.87% 32.17% 22.38% 9.09% 10.49%
Very poor Poor Fair Good Excellent
Overall rating
you want to give
for foot over
bridge in Dhaka.
N 15 67 32 22 7
% 10.49% 46.85% 22.38% 15.38% 4.90%
6. Data Analysis
Data were analyzed using descriptive, correlation and regression analysis. SPSS is a popular
statistical software developed by IBM in 1968 was used for statistical analysis of responses.
Table 2 shows the descriptive analysis of the data.

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Table-2. Descriptive statistics
Attributes Mean
Std.
Deviation
Variance Skewness Kurtosis
Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic
Std.
Error
Statistic
Std.
Error
Overall_rating 2.57 1.031 1.063 .621 .203 -.244 .403
Time_consuming 2.36 1.224 1.499 .665 .203 -.544 .403
Too_high 2.62 1.233 1.520 .336 .203 -.934 .403
Occupied_hawker 1.80 1.270 1.614 1.560 .203 1.240 .403
Lack_security 1.97 1.216 1.478 1.366 .203 1.036 .403
Long_walk 2.30 1.055 1.113 .392 .203 -.750 .403
Poor_access 2.08 .996 .993 .783 .203 .182 .403
Congested 2.15 1.083 1.173 .835 .203 .045 .403
Uneasy 2.51 1.261 1.590 .500 .203 -.768 .403
Dirty 1.94 1.167 1.363 1.133 .203 .379 .403
Inappropriate_position 2.29 1.148 1.319 .833 .203 .075 .403
Descriptive statistics show that, overall rating is 2.57. All the attributes along overall rating
have standard deviation around 1-1.2. Mean value of response varies from 1.8 to 2.6 for the
attributes. The value is within poor to fair range. The data are moderate positive skewed. All
factors are positive skewed. Some factors such as-Occupied by hawker, lack of security and
dirtiness are very highly skewed. Normal distribution has kurtosis 0. Overall rating has
kurtosis negative value, i.e. lower than normal distribution. From the distribution of responses,
tails are lighter than normal distribution. In question of occupied by hawker and lack security,
respondents are highly concentrated on the average responses. Respondents are widely varies
in too high, long walk and uneasiness point of view. After descriptive statistics, correlation
analysis is conducted. Table 3 represents results of correlation statistics.
Table-3. Correlation statistics
Attributes Overall_rating
Overall_rating Pearson Correlation 1
Sig. (2-tailed)
Time_consuming Pearson Correlation .283**
Sig. (2-tailed) .001
Too_high Pearson Correlation -.180*
Sig. (2-tailed) .032
Occupied_hawker Pearson Correlation .089
Sig. (2-tailed) .288
Lack_security Pearson Correlation .007
Sig. (2-tailed) .931
Long_walk Pearson Correlation .417**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000

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Poor_access Pearson Correlation .474**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
Congested Pearson Correlation .192*
Sig. (2-tailed) .022
Uneasy Pearson Correlation .017
Sig. (2-tailed) .840
Dirty Pearson Correlation .249**
Sig. (2-tailed) .003
Inappropriate_position Pearson Correlation .384**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
Correlation analysis shows that some attributes are not statistically significant with overall
rating of foot over bridge. The insignificant factors are—too high, occupied by hawker,
congested, dirty, lack of security and uneasy. Statistically insignificant attributes can be
discarded. After that, regression model is constructed to understand relationship of overall
condition of foot over bridge with other attributes.
Table-4. Regression model
Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate
1 .618a
.382 .364 .823
a. Predictors: (Constant), Inappropriate_position, Time consuming, Poor_access, Long_walk
Table-5. Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
ANOVAb
Model
Sum of
Squares
df
Mean
Square
F Sig.
1
Regression 57.609 4 14.402 21.287 .000a
Residual 93.370 138 .677
Total 150.979 142
a. Predictors: (Constant), Inappropriate_position, Time_consuming, Poor_access, Long_walk
b. Dependent Variable: Overall_rating
Table-6. Coefficients
Coefficientsa
Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficient t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1
(Constant) .563 .233 2.420 .017
Time_consuming .156 .057 .185 2.719 .007
Long_walk .231 .071 .236 3.227 .002
Poor_access .337 .074 .326 4.551 .000
Inappropriate_position .179 .065 .199 2.757 .007

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a. Dependent Variable: Overall_rating
The reduced model consists with four attributes, which are statistically significant with
overall rating. These factors are—time consuming, long walk, poor access and inappropriate
position. The R2
of the regression model is 0.382 though lower than full model, all attributes
in it are p<0.05 as per ANOVA.
7. Conclusion
Valuable information are obtained from the statistical analysis of survey data regarding
respondents’ perception on foot over bridges. Significant portion of pedestrian avoid foot over
bridge because those requires long walk to climb rather than crossing road and pedestrian
have to spend more time to cross the road. Proper law enforcement and blocking unlawful
road crossing by providing high guard rail in the median can force people to use foot over
bridge. Besides, pedestrian thinks that foot over bridges are in inappropriate position and do
not have proper access. City Corporation should take necessary steps before design and plan
of foot over bridge construction. Also authority need to take care for unobstructed access of
foot over bridge and proper maintenance so that those are easy accessible.
8. References
[1] Aminuzzaman, S. M. and Shuvo, S. H., Culture of Defying Laws: A Case Study on
'Foot Over-bridges' in Dhaka City, Outcome of Group 1, Department of Public
Administration, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, 2015.
[2] Center for Urban Studies, Feasibility study on foot over bridges in Dhaka City, Dhaka:
Center for Urban Studies, http://cusdhaka.org/, (2005),
http://cusdhaka.org/research/feasibility-study-on-foot-over-bridges-in-dhaka-city.
[3] Haque, M. M. and Ahsan, H. M., Traffic Safety in Dhaka City: Key Issues and
Countermeasures, Journal of Civil Engineering, The Institute of Engineers, 30(1), 13-
24, 2002.
[4] Rubayat A. and Sultana N., Reasons Behind the Road-Traffic Accident in Dhaka City:
An Empirical Study, International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and
Literature (IJRHAL), 1(2), 47-56, 2013.
[5] Saha M. K., Tishi, T. R., Islam, M. S. and Mitra, S. K., Pedestrian Behavioral Pattern
and Preferences in Different Road Crossing Systems of Dhaka City, Journal of
Bangladesh Institute of Planners, 6, 149-160, 2013.
[6] D. M. Sabet, Testing the impact of risk on pedestrian behavior in Dhaka, Bangladesh,
Center for Enterprise and Society, ULAB, CES working paper,
http://www.ulab.edu.bd/CES/home/, (2013), http://www.ulab.edu.bd/CES/research-
and-publications/