Risk assessment of pedestrian red-light violation behavior using surrogate safety measures: Influence of human, road, vehicle, and environmental factors

Abstract

Pedestrian red-light violation is one of the crucial causes of pedestrian crashes at urban intersections, which cause considerable injuries and casualties to this vulnerable road group of road users. The objective of this study is to evaluate the risk of pedestrian-vehicle collisions by clustering the pedestrians' red-light violations using surrogate safety measures. The present study utilized surveillance camera footage to collect data on pedestrians' red-light violations at two urban intersections in Babol City. Based on critical thresholds of post-encroachment time (PET), Time to Collision (TTC), and Gap Time (GT), three different risk levels of red-light violations were identified through the use of a K-means algorithm. Moreover, structural equation models were developed for each of the risk levels considering variables that are associated with four major components: human, environment, road, and vehicle. Lastly, policy insights into amending pedestrian behavior and promoting traffic safety culture were proposed, with an overarching emphasis on the human factor, due to its identified greater influence on the propensity for red-light violations.