Abstract
Pedestrian injury in crashes at intersections often results from complex interaction among various factors. The factor identification is a critical task for understanding the causes and improving the pedestrian safety. A total of 2,614 crash records at signalized and non-signalized intersections were applied. A Partial Proportional Odds (PPO) model was developed to examine the factors influencing Pedestrian Injury Severity (PIS) because it can accommodate the ordered response nature of injury severity. An elasticity analysis was conducted to quantify the marginal effects of contributing factors on the likelihood of PIS. For signalized intersections, seven explanatory variables significantly affect the likelihood of PIS, in which five explanatory variables violate the Proportional Odds Assumption (POA). Local driver, truck, holiday, clear weather, and hit-and-run lead to higher likelihood of severer PIS. For non-signalized intersections, six explanatory variables were found significant to the PIS, in which three explanatory variables violate the POA. Young and adult drivers, senior pedestrian, bus/van, divided road, holiday, and darkness tend to increase the likelihood of severer PIS. The vehicles of large size and heavy weight (e.g. truck, bus/van) are significant factors to the PIS at both signalized and non-signalized intersections. The proposed PPO model has demonstrated its effectiveness in identifying the effects of contributing factors on the PIS.
Highlights
Though considerable advances have been made in vehicle and roadway design, pedestrians are still the most vulnerable road users under the concern of the transportation authorities and researchers
Obeng & Rokonuzzaman [10] analysed the Pedestrian Injury Severity (PIS) based on vehicle-pedestrian crashes that occurred at signalized intersections, and the results showed that the vehicle type, gender, land-use, speed limit, traffic volume, presence of sidewalk and visual-obstruction are significant factors
Where Yi is the PIS of crash i; J is the number of the PIS levels (i.e. J = 4 here); Xi is a vector of explanatory variables associated with crash i; N is the number of crashes; β is a vector of the corresponding parameter estimations associated with Xi; and αj is the cut-off point for the j-th cumulative logit
Summary
Though considerable advances have been made in vehicle and roadway design, pedestrians are still the most vulnerable road users under the concern of the transportation authorities and researchers. The complex design and environment of an intersection result from roadway geometry, lane configurations, presence of traffic control devices and markings, the density of buildings and the volume of other road users, which might result in the drivers overlooking the potential risks. When vehicles approach an intersection the drivers must be attentive with respect to the conflicting traffic and pedestrians. The complexity of an intersection was found to significantly affect the crash risk, which is of particular concern among pedestrians. The pedestrian safety at intersections has been regarded as a priority goal of traffic authorities
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