Improving pedestrian’s crosswalk accessibility through digital fencing

Abstract

One of the major challenges for visually impaired people is to walk safely in any urban landscape. Modern cities are using passive solutions, like audible signals, to promote the security of that pedestrians. However, these solutions may be insufficient to provide the relevant information about the traffic flow, and the length of the crosswalk among many other questions. Smart crosswalks can improve the access to such information by providing a way for the user to share data with them. This paper addresses this question by presenting the VALLPASS project that aims to develop a smart pedestrians crosswalk that, besides other design requirements, aims to promote accessibility by sharing local traffic data with the user. Besides that, pedestrian security will be tackled by defining a digital protecting fence based on the user location obtained from the RSSI values between two beacons and the user’s smartphone. Details behind its operation and the overall functionality of a custom-made app will be provided.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio