Defining daytime in the day-dark approach to measuring the pedestrian reassurance of road lighting

Abstract

In the day-dark approach to measuring the contribution of road lighting to pedestrian reassurance, reassurance is evaluated in daylight and after dark. In previous studies, the daylight and after dark evaluations were carried out at different times of day. Other factors, such as the presence of other people, are likely to vary with time of day, and hence this confounds conclusions about the effectiveness of road lighting. In this study, we conducted a day-dark field study of pedestrian reassurance but with the daylight evaluation carried out at two times of the day, one at around mid-day and one at the same time of day as the after dark evaluation, achieved by taking advantage of the biannual daylight savings clock change. These data did not suggest any significant effects of time of day on the daylight evaluations of pedestrian reassurance.