Organisation: Department for Transport
Date uploaded: 3rd November 2011
Date published/launched: October 2011
Shared space is a design approach that seeks to change the way streets operate by reducing the dominance of motor vehicles, primarily through lower speeds and encouraging drivers to behave more accommodatingly towards pedestrians.
reducing the dominance of motor vehicles, primarily through lower speeds and
encouraging drivers to behave more accommodatingly towards pedestrians.
Tangible indicators of sharing include:
• Pedestrians occupying the carriageway;
• Increased levels of social interaction and leisure activity;
• People spending longer in the street (evidence of an enhanced sense of place);
• Drivers and cyclists giving way to pedestrians;
• Pedestrians crossing the street at locations, angles and times of their choosing;
• Drivers and cyclists giving way to one another.
Shared space challenges the assumption that segregating pedestrians and vehicles
by high levels of demarcation improves safety.
Available evidence indicates a comparable number of casualties in shared space streets and conventional streets. This is despite the fact that some of the schemes studied experienced increased use by pedestrians and cyclists after conversion to shared space.
At its simplest, reducing demarcation might mean removing guardrailing. At the other end of the scale would be the implementation of a level surface, where conventional kerbs are
omitted and pedestrians share an undifferentiated surface with vehicles.
For more information contact:
Department of Transport Research Team