News Article

Archived News Release: May 1, 2018 - ​The City of Ann Arbor's Changing Driver Behavior study will take place once again this May and June with a new media campaign and round of traffic enforcement. The study, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Ron Van Houten and his team from Western Michigan University, began last year with the goal of utilizing enforcement, in street messaging and communications to improve the yielding and stopping rates at crosswalks in Ann Arbor.

A new ad about stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks will begin airing across southeast Michigan beginning the week of May 1. Additional enforcement at targeted sites in Ann Arbor will begin on Tuesday, May 29 and last two weeks.

A dozen locations on commute routes are part of the study, with half receiving enhanced enforcement and stopping/yielding rate feedback, the other half acting as controls where data is collected to find if compliance rates outside the targeted routes improve. In addition to the media campaign and traffic enforcement, changeable message signs along the road will update drivers on yielding rates allowing the public to see progress in real time.

Last year's efforts resulted in significant improvements. At the targeted enforcement sites across the city, yielding rates went from a mean of 27 percent to 58 percent. At observations sites, where only data was collected, yielding rates jumped from 37 percent to 49 percent.

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