Comprehensive Study of Risk Factors for Fatal Pedestrian Crashes in Urban Setup in a Developing Country

Abstract

In developing nations, pedestrian safety is a matter of major concern. The present study investigates historical crash data (2011–2016) obtained from Kolkata police, India, and identifies the key risk factors for fatal pedestrian crashes at the road network level (i.e., intersections and midblock crossings). To develop an understanding of the risk factors associated with fatal pedestrian crashes, a set of safety performance functions (SPF) are developed for both intersection and midblock level. In these SPFs, several attempts are executed to identify a host of risk factors ranging from road infrastructure to land use, traffic exposure, and operational parameters, pedestrian-level attributes, and spatial characteristics of the road network. Based on the study outcomes, there is strong evidence that approaching speed of vehicles, pedestrian-vehicular volume ratio, overtaking tendency of vehicles, inaccessibility of pedestrian crosswalk, land use type, lower post-encroachment time (PET), longer waiting time before crossing, a high share of “pedestrian is not following zebra crossing,” pedestrians’ perceived crossing difficulty, the presence of “pedestrian attraction zone” (e.g., hospital, educational institute, shopping mall, bars, etc.), and high population density significantly affect the fatal pedestrian crash frequency at the intersection level. On the other hand, over-speeding and overtaking tendency of vehicles, inadequate pavement marking, lack of visibility during night-time, lower PET, higher crossing difficulty, longer waiting time before crossing, and several spatial features such as slum population and the presence of “pedestrian attraction zone”, significantly increase the likelihood of fatal pedestrian crashes at the midblock level.