Abstract
Pedestrians are ideal subjects for the study of decision-making, due to the inter-individual variation in risk taking. Many studies have attempted to understand which environmental factors influence the number of times pedestrians broke the rules at road-crossings, very few focused on the decision-making process of pedestrians according to the different conditions of these variables, that is to say their perception and interpretation of the information they receive. We used survival analyses and modeling to highlight the decision-making process of pedestrians crossing the road at signalized crossings in France and in Japan. For the first pedestrians to step off the kerb, we showed that the probability to cross the road follows three different processes: one at the red signal, one just before the pedestrian signal turns green, and one after the signal has turned green. Globally, the decision of the first pedestrian to cross, whether he or she does so at the green or at the red signal, is influenced by their country of residence. We identify the use of cognitive processes such as risk sensitivity and temporal discounting, and propose new concepts based on the results of this study to decrease the incidence of rule-breaking by pedestrians.
Highlights
Human beings have to make numerous decisions every day throughout their lifetime
If the probability of departures would be constant per time unit, the survival would be either linear or exponential-like
Our results show that the probability to cross at the red signal is not constant but is almost null when the pedestrian signal goes red and increases when getting closer and closer to the green pedestrian signal
Summary
Human beings have to make numerous decisions every day throughout their lifetime. Most of these decisions are relatively easy: what to eat for breakfast, what to wear, what itinerary they will use to go to school or to work. Whether or not they should marry or have a child are bigger choices to make. Decisions usually follow something comparable to an optimal test called SPRT (sequential probability ratio test) and require a sufficient difference of evidence or information between two alternatives in order to choose the most profitable or the less risky of the two options [3,4]. Without going so far as to claim that these everyday life decisions are suboptimal [5,6] or irrational [7,8,9], human decisions might be biased and influenced by personal, social, and/or environmental variables
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
