THE AVERAGE WALKING SPEED WHEN WALKING ON

THE STREET AND CROSSING THE STREET

Name: Emil Heinäaho

Group: Tanja Ohra-Aho, Anna-Karin Teir and Antti Kataja

Date: 20.8.1999

AIM

The research question in this investigation was to find out the difference between the average speeds when the people walks on the street and when they cross the street. Based on that, the following hypothesis was made that the people’s walking speed is about the same on the street and when crossing the street. The key variables were all the interesting things that you find on a street because they can make the people stop and also the cars which may put people run in the traffic lights.

METHODS

The following tools, two normal wrist watch was selected because the group could get two of them easily. The variables were controlled by just letting them affect the investigation result like stopping on the street. The raw data was collected by first measuring the length of the chosen part on the street and the length when crossing the street. The values for this were 26 meters on the street and 12 meters when crossing the street. The next thing was just to measure how long time did it take when the people walked these the specific distance. Time started always when the chosen person started to walk this specific distance and stopped when he or she had finished it.’

RESULTS

The data is presented below in Figure 1. The uncertainties of the data are estimated to be small.

ANALYSIS

The raw data was processed in the following way by using the equation speed = distance / time ( s=m/s ). The result of this analysis is that the average walking speed of the people is higher when crossing the street compared to normal walking on a street. This can be seen in the Figure 2 from the Average slots where the average speed on the street is lower then the crossing the street average. The reasons for this might be that be try cross the street as fast as possible. When walking on the street there might be all kinds of things that might stop people. The effect of the uncertainties on this is not analysed here because they do not have such a big effect that some analysing would be required.

EVALUATION

The conclusion of this investigation is that this investigation was nice change to the ordinary studying because now the students could use their knowledge from the lessons to investigate the real life. The weakness of the procedure is inexact values. The following improvements are suggested. There would be needed a timer clock so it would be possible to get exact numbers and also a good measure for measuring the exact distance of the particular distance on the street and in the traffic lights.

APPENDICES

The instructions can be seen on page 3.