Pedestrian risk analysis at uncontrolled midblock and unsignalised intersections

• Main Authors: Kodavanti Venkata Raghavendra Ravishankar, Parvathy Maheswari Nair
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. 2018-04-01
• Series: Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering (English ed. Online)
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095756416302124

Transportation is defined as port to port transfer of person or goods by a medium which can be a vehicle or a person. Pedestrians being the most neglected mode of transportation in terms of safety and facility, face difficult situations while crossing near intersections and midblock crossings. It becomes more of a risk when the place of crossing is uncontrolled. But if behaviour of pedestrians while crossing is analysed in such conditions, it might be possible to create suitable solution to lessen the risk and ensure safety. In most of the cities, accepting suitable gaps between vehicles in uncontrolled midblock and intersection crossings pose threat to pedestrians' safety. The present study examines the safety of pedestrian crossing behaviour at midblock and unsignalised intersection crossings. Crossing time, speed, stages of crossing, number of interruptions while crossing, and the type of vehicles for which pedestrians accept the gap were extracted from the video. The tendency to show rolling gap behavior was observed and examined for different age and gender groups to analyse the risk involved in such type of crossings. The risks analysed from the study in correlation with the pedestrian demand in such uncontrolled crossings will help in design of safer pedestrian facilities. It was observed that the size of the vehicle has a significant influence on gap acceptance and crossing behaviour of pedestrians. Male pedestrians take more risks than female pedestrians in crossing unsignalized intersections. Middle aged pedestrian category poses 60.1% more chances of interrupted crossing than the other elder and young age categories of pedestrians. Male pedestrian category and the middle aged pedestrian category are more tended to accept the smallest gap between the vehicles showing a risky nature of crossing. Keywords: Pedestrian risk analysis, Risk factors, Rolling gap, Safety margin, Stages of crossing