How Does Pedestrian-Driver Behavior Influence in the Number of Crashes? A Michigan’s Case Study (original) (raw)

Analysis of Pedestrian–Motor Vehicle Crashes in San Antonio, Texas

Sustainability, 2021

Pedestrian safety is becoming a global concern and an understanding of the contributing factors to severe pedestrian crashes is crucial. This study analyzed crash data for San Antonio, TX, over a six-year period to understand the effects of pedestrian–vehicle crash-related variables on pedestrian injury severity based on the party at fault and to identify high-risk locations. Bivariate analysis and logistic regression were used to identify the most significant predictors of severe pedestrian crashes. High-risk locations were identified through heat maps and hotspot analysis. A failure to yield the right of way and driver inattention were the primary contributing factors to pedestrian–vehicle crashes. Fatal and incapacitating injury risk increased substantially when the pedestrian was at fault. The strongest predictors of severe pedestrian injury include the lighting condition, the road class, the speed limit, traffic control, collision type, the age of the pedestrian, and the gender...

A Methodology to Identify High Pedestrian Crash Locations: An Illustration Using the Las Vegas Metro Area

In recent years, Las Vegas metro area in Clark County, Nevada has experienced one of the highest fatal pedestrian crash rates and the pedestrian injury crash rates among urban counties with similar populations in United States. Common notions attribute these crashes to high numbers of visitor volumes, large amount of pedestrian movements, and the free-flowing alcohol provided to customers at major resorts and casinos. However, facts dispel the myth that a vast majority of pedestrians involved in crashes and drivers involved in crashes with pedestrians are residents of Las Vegas. Thus, the pedestrian safety problem in Las Vegas metro area warranted immediate attention. A methodology is developed and implemented to identify pedestrian high crash locations in the Las Vegas metro area. Crash data were collected for a five year period (1996 to 2000) and address matched using the street name / reference street name location referencing system and a Geographic Information System software program. Pedestrian crash rates were computed using zipcodes as the basis for zones. Two indices were developed: one was to determine crash exposure rates, and the other was to compute the proportion of crashes at locations with respect to the total pedestrian crashes in the study area. These indices were used to identify the zones with pedestrian crash rates higher than the average pedestrian crash rates for the entire study area. From within these zones, 34 high pedestrian crash locations were identified that accounted for about one-third of all pedestrian crashes in the study area. These locations are ranked based on the computed crash indices to help prioritize identification and implementation of pedestrian safety treatments.

Spatial Factors Affecting the Frequency of Pedestrian Traffic Crashes: A Systematic Review

Archives of Trauma Research, 2016

Context: Considering the importance of pedestrian traffic crashes and the role of environmental factors in the frequency of crashes, this paper aimed to review the published evidence and synthesize the results of related studies for the associations between environmental factors and distribution of pedestrian-vehicular traffic crashes. Evidence Acquisition: We searched all epidemiological studies from 1966 to 2015 in electronic databases. We found 2,828 studies. Only 15 observational studies out of these studies met the inclusion criteria of the study. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology (STROBE) checklist. Results: A review of the studies showed significant correlations between a large number of spatial variables including student population and the number of schools, population density, traffic volume, roadway density, socioeconomic status, number of intersections, and the pedestrian volume and the dependent variable of the frequency of pedestrian traffic crashes. In the studies, some spatial factors that play an important role in determining the frequency of pedestrian traffic crashes, such as facilities for increasing the pedestrians' safety were ignored. Conclusions: It is proposed that the needed research be conducted at national and regional levels in coordination and cooperation with international organizations active in the field of traffic crashes in various parts of the world, especially in Asian, African and Latin American developing countries, where a greater proportion of pedestrian traffic crashes occur.

Investigating Pedestrian Crash Risk in Albuquerque, New Mexico

2016

This article estimates the pedestrian crash risk at intersections in Albuquerque, NM and then investigates factors associated with different risk levels. The authors define risk as the number of pedestrian crashes per number of crossings at major roadway intersections. Most crash statistics and many prior pedestrian crash studies report the frequency of pedestrian crashes but not crash risk. Crash risk estimates can help identify the most dangerous intersections and roadways which may not always be those with the largest number of crashes. Crash risk estimates can also be used to understand what factors may result in different risk levels. This study finds that pedestrian crash risk varies widely across the intersections in this study and that the most heavily used intersections and those with greatest number of pedestrian crashes are not those with the high crash risks. The authors find that younger age, lower educational achievement, and lower income are associated with higher cra...

Spatial variation in local road pedestrian and bicycle crashes

Local roads represent a large proportion of pedestrians and bicyclists since they provide access to adjacent land. Therefore, identification of high pedestrian and bicycle crash zones on local roads to enhance safety is essential to develop and implement effective countermeasures. Application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has gained popularity in traffic safety as they offer immense potential to detect high crash locations. This paper conducted cluster analysis in GIS to identify spatial patterns and high concentration of local road pedestrian crash zones based on statewide crash data collected in Tennessee from 2008 to 2012. Poisson distribution was developed to ascertain whether crashes create clustered pattern by comparing the frequency distribution of observed block groups containing many crashes and those of expected (random) distribution. Chi square analysis was used to test whether two distributions are significantly different. The GIS kernel density tool was applied to create crash density map and locate crash clusters. The findings of this study indicate that pedestrian crash clusters are associated with lowincome households, households below poverty level, population with education less than high school and households without vehicles.

Explaining Pedestrian and Vehicular Crashes in Conjunction with Exposure Measures

2014

The first part of the research presents an investigation of pedestrian conflicts and crash count models to learn which exposure measures and roadway or roadside characteristics significantly influence pedestrian safety at road crossings. The results show that minor and serious conflicts are marginally significant in predicting total pedestrian crashes together with crossing distance and building setback. This suggests that these conflicts may be a good surrogate for crashes in analyzing pedestrian safety. Greater crossing distance and small building setbacks are both found to be associated with larger numbers of pedestrian-vehicle crashes. In the second part of the research we assembled crash and roadway geometry data of freeways in the State of Connecticut for developing Safety performance functions (SPFs). Models were estimated separately for single vehicle and multi-vehicle crashes. Interaction models were found to be the best models for all crash categories. This finding suggests the importance of incorporating interaction effect between variables, in particular between speed limit and geometric variables such as number of lanes, shoulder width, and median type, during crash prediction model estimation. Last part of the research presents an investigation to find a preferred crash typology for the prediction of crash severities for controlled access highways. We find that the typology based on vehicle travel direction has better fit than the other models. The finding demonstrates that the crash types and AADT could be good predictor of crash severities when crash and person related information are not available, as is the case for segment level prediction.

Pedestrian crash trends and potential countermeasures from around the world

Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2012

As automobile transportation continues to increase around the world, bicyclists, pedestrians, and motorcyclists, also known as vulnerable road users (VRUs), will become more susceptible to traffic crashes, especially in countries where traffic laws are poorly enforced. Many countries, however, are employing innovative strategies to ensure that road users can more safely navigate the urban landscape. While bicyclists and motorcyclists are important road users, this paper will focus on pedestrian crash problems and solutions. Pedestrians are most at risk in urban areas due in part to the large amount of pedestrian and vehicle activity in urban areas. With this in mind, designing safe, accessible, and comprehensive facilities for pedestrians is vital to reducing pedestrian crashes. This paper will provide some insight into the magnitude of the pedestrian crash problem around the world, and will offer some lessons learned from several countries, particularly in Europe and the U.S., for improving pedestrian safety. Beginning with pedestrian safety statistics at the global, regional, and national levels, this paper will address potential countermeasures and strategies for improving pedestrian safety from an international perspective.

Effects of the built environment on automobile-involved pedestrian crash frequency and risk

Journal of Transport & Health, 2016

This area-based study explores the relationship between automobile-involved pedestrian crash frequency versus risk and various built environment factors, such as road network and land use. The methodology involves the use of Bayesian hierarchical intrinsic conditional autoregressive model, which accounts for unobserved heterogeneities and spatial autocorrelations. The city of Seattle is selected for this empirical study, and the geospatial unit of analysis is traffic analysis zone. The primary data were obtained from Seattle Department of Transportation collision profiles. The major findings of this research include: (1) the densities of 4-way intersections and more than 5-way intersections, and land use mixture are positively correlated with the pedestrian crash frequency and the risk; (2) sidewalk density and the proportion of steep areas are negatively associated with the pedestrian crash frequency and the risk; (3) areas with a higher bus stop density are likely to have more pedestrian crashes; (4) in areas with a greater proportion of industrial land use, the pedestrian crash frequency is lower; (5) in areas with an averagely higher posted speed limit, the pedestrian crash risk is higher; (6) in areas with a greater employment density, the pedestrian crash risk is lower; (7) the mode share of walking and the total number of trips are positively correlated with the pedestrian crash frequency, and the total number of trips is negatively correlated with the pedestrian crash risk. These findings provide supports for planning policy making and road safety programs. Local authorities should improve walkability through providing more sidewalks and separate motorized traffic and pedestrian travels in areas with different land use purposes. Compact development should be encouraged to support building a safe walking environment.