The Effect of Physical Environment Risk Factors on Vehicle Collisions Severity Involving Child-Pedestrians in Malaysia

Abstract

This study is aimed at investigating the association between child-pedestrian severity levels of collisions and physical environmental variables. The outcome of this study could be applied to road safety intervention for improving engineering modifications related to children pedestrians. The retrospective analysis was carried out using 6-year data from Royal Malaysia Police records from the years 2009 to 2014. Multinomial logit modeling (MNL) was applied. The results demonstrated that the injury severity of the collisions is related to road geometry, road surface material, road surface condition, traffic system, road marking, traffic control type, lighting condition, speed limit, time of collision, type of location, and land use characteristics. Specifically, fatal injury collisions are significantly increased by t/y intersection; concrete and earth-road surfaces; two-way traffic and dual carriageways; posted speed limits of 70 to 90 km/h; time of collision: 0 to 0659 hours (early morning) and 0700 to 0959 hours (morning); lighting conditions, including dark without street light, and dark with street light; and control type involving police. Meanwhile, cross intersections’ posted speed limits of 80 km/h to 90 km/h and the time of collision from 0 to 0659 hours (early morning) and 1900 to 2459 hours (night), significantly increased serious injury collisions. Notably, the findings revealed the importance of more in-depth studies on physical environmental features that relate to child-pedestrians’ severity level of collisions. This is essential for improvements to physical environmental designs by policymakers. Thus, policymakers and stakeholders can utilize the findings to further improve the physical environment through structure and design.