01556691

Component

Collisions between vehicles and pedestrians continue to occur at a high rate each year, resulting in several thousand pedestrian injuries and deaths in the United States alone. In addition to the natural environmental factors (i.e. precipitation, lighting, temperature, etc.), factors related to the infrastructure in which pedestrians walk impact the safety performance of a given roadway segment. The objective of this paper is to identify infrastructural elements which contribute to pedestrian-vehicle collisions. For this purpose, data from NASS-GES (National Automotive Sampling System - General Estimates System) was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The corresponding approach allows grouping multiple exogenous factors contributing to pedestrian collisions into groups (i.e. dimensions) consisting of multiple variables providing a more comprehensive analysis of the safety of roadway features. The findings may allow the avoidance of undesired/dangerous design standards adopted by traffic/transportation engineers through altering the surrounding physical environment (like adding artificial light to dark roadways) and thus providing better protection for pedestrians.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF10 Pedestrians. Alternate title: Built Environment Factors Contributing to Pedestrian Collisions: Structural Equation Modeling Approach.

01550057

15-5663

English

16p

2015

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Built environment; Factor analysis; Highway factors in crashes; Pedestrian safety; Pedestrian vehicle crashes; Structural equation modeling

National Automotive Sampling System

United States

Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-5663

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 30 2014 1:54PM