Identifying factors affecting pedestrians' crossing decisions at intersections in Iran

Abstract

Walking is the basic way of movement and the most environmentally sound mode of urban transportation. However, pedestrians sometimes are subjected to danger by engaging themselves in risky and unsafe behaviour during road crossing. Accordingly, in order to reduce the rate of road crashes and improve pedestrians' safety, providing preventive countermeasures and conducting studies on pedestrians' risk-acceptance behaviour has great importance. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify factors affecting pedestrians' risk-taking behaviour while crossing intersections in urban streets. An observational survey of road crossings was conducted at six intersections located in Qazvin, Iran to determine the crossing details of the pedestrians in both directions. Selected crossings were in near both signalised and un-signalised intersections. In all, 800 samples were observed and the binary logit model applied for identifying factors affecting pedestrians' risk-taking behaviour. The results showed that the average time to collision (TTC) chosen by pedestrians were about 6·6 s at signalised intersections and about 5·8 s at un-signalised intersections. It was also indicated that factors including individual characteristics (e.g. gender, age, dressing type, pedestrian speed etc.), environmental conditions (e.g. other violating pedestrians, kerb parking, waiting time etc.) and traffic conditions (e.g. speed of approaching vehicles, TTC etc.) can significantly affect pedestrians' risk-taking behaviour.