.... - but off the signalled crossings the puffin is undoubtedly superior.
I disagree, Smart crossings are possible with farsides, they just need an additional colour aspect/countdown(very long/extendable blackouts are a really poor form of communication IMO).
With traditional signalled crossings pedestrians wecre given an amount of time to cross - and this requires a brisk walk so is insufficient for elderly pedestrians of parents with toddlers and the like. The only function of the far side signal (whether it is a flashing man or one of those horrible countdown to doom signals from the US) is to prompt slower pedestrians to get a move on.
I disagree: I want the the reassurance of farside signals and I think most pedestrians do, LivingStreets (was the Pedestrian Association) certainly think so.
I thought the flashing green figure/amber traffic signal (invented in the days of 'dumb' crossings) was a rather good compromise: While brisk walkers like me can cross within the green man time, the flashing figure (official meaning: don't start crossing but still time to finish) allows slower persons still on crossing to retain priority like a zebra while allowing on road traffic to go as soon as crossing clear: so to me a pelican is like a zebra-light-hybrid: with the addition of a red lamp to legally require traffic to stop instead at a zebra where the pedestrian has no priority until they set foot on crossing (which may result in a long wait in solid badly behaved traffic streams). You seem to complaining that the flashing green figure time is too short but that is a installation choice.
But I do like zebras were suitable (<=30mph limits).
Dumb Countdown signals allow late-arriving people to make their own choices about when to start crossing: as long as the overall time to cross is enough for a slow person who starts on green figures 'invitation to cross' to complete, I don't see whats wrong with that.
And smart crossings still have a relatively low max clearance time: they could be viewed as a way to allow traffic priority sooner than dumb non-pelican crossings but without the woollyness of the flashing amber at a pelican (which is rather similar to the zebras amber beacon....). However, the pelican phase can't be used at signalised junction crossings whereas smart crossings could: But smart crossings can use farsides.
Puffins are more civilised, pedestrians on the crossing are detected so the signals will not change until they have completed the crossing - drivers are made to wait rather than pedestrians hassled across so a far side signal would serve no purpose. All pedestrians need is a green signal at the near side to tell them that the can start crossing - once they have started to cross there is no need for any further signal - indeed, a far side signal could cause unnecessary alarm - a pedestrian who has just started to cross might see the green signal go out and return back to the side they started
I disagree (I hate Puffins):
1) I want to see a farside green figure (and then amber something) as reassurance the crossing has detected me. I think I am in the majority.
2) Smart farside crossings are equally possible (although I think they currently only exist in farside Toucan form). It is a pity smart pedestrian crossings were developed as nearside Puffins...
3) I have seen a driver at a smart crossing decide they had been waiting too long and go straight through their red signal while pedestrians still crossed: so replacing flashing amber due to lack of respect for that may not increase respect for remaining traffic signal aspects.
I concede that camera enforcement of red could use standard red light cameras whereas flashing amber would require continuously running video and some sort of way to log an incident. But I have never seen a camera at a crossing.
Also, a lightly traffic-ed Puffin may decide it hasn't been able to test its person detectors enough and present on road traffic with a long fixed red time due to emergency fixed crossing clearance time rather than rely on its on-crossing detectors: I wonder if emergency flashing amber might have been better.
4) Puffins will still eventually give up on crossing pedestrians (clearance timeout expires) and set on-road signals back to green (and have no way of telling such still- crossing pedestrians). If you think some drivers intimidate crossing persons during flashing amber why do you not worry about crossing pedestrians being exposed to such drivers during a change to green?