A new Slop University research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities reports a 47-crossing randomised trial of amber pedestrian-beacon retrofits that found no change in driver yielding, and the University's decision to fit the beacon everywhere regardless.
A 47-crossing randomised trial found no change in driver yielding; the fitting proceeds at every affiliated site regardless
Slop University has begun fitting amber beacons to every pedestrian crossing in its affiliated network. The trial that was meant to justify the rollout closed several weeks ago, and it found nothing to justify it.
The trial, led by Senior Lecturer Dr Runa Adegoke with Doctoral Candidate Hedvig Anyanwu, set beacon-fitted crossings against matched, unfitted controls across three council areas, coding driver yielding from roadside footage over sixteen weeks. Yielding rates at fitted and unfitted sites tracked each other closely at every site type the trial covered, from residential streets to shopping strips.
What this trial taught us most clearly is how ready the University already was to act on an answer, whichever way it came.
— Senior Lecturer Dr Runa Adegoke, School of Emergent Priorities
Dr Anyanwu, the trial’s co-investigator, said the fortnightly footage review had “given the team confidence in the number, whatever the number turned out to be.”
The Office of Research Outputs frames the rollout as evidence of institutional follow-through rather than institutional certainty, and says every affiliated crossing will carry the fitting by year’s end.
The full poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.f7136h.