Development, testing, and evaluation of road safety poster to reduce jaywalking behavior at intersections

Abstract

Jaywalking is a traffic violation that contributes significantly to vehicle–pedestrian crashes at intersections. Although public education campaigns have been widely used in road safety, relatively little research has been conducted to understand the underlying process or mechanisms that influence their effectiveness for pedestrian safety, especially jaywalking behavior. This study aims to develop, test, and evaluate on-road pedestrian safety posters that are based on proven behavioral change approaches with demonstrated evidence to reduce jaywalking at intersections. A pedestrian safety poster targeting jaywalking was developed using several theoretical constructs from well-established behavioral change models and a questionnaire survey was administered to pedestrians to gauge their perceptions of the poster. Results showed that the communication had a significant positive effect in changing respondents’ adaptive intentions. The poster was subsequently installed at two signalized intersections in Melbourne, Australia, and the before (without) and after (with) proportions of jaywalkers were observed. Our results showed a significant decrease in the proportion of jaywalkers after the installation of the poster. This study showed that properly designed on-site road safety communication could change pedestrian behavior. It further highlighted the importance of using a well-established conceptual framework in the development and testing of road safety messages.