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Asian cities have promoted TOD to increase MRT use and decrease private vehicle use. A crucial factor in achieving this goal is improving the pedestrian environment, which can increase people's willingness to walk to MRT stations. This paper analyses how Asian cities have improved the pedestrian environment around MRT stations and the factors influencing walking willingness by reviewing literature and taking Taipei as the empirical area. The results demonstrated that reducing obstacles in pedestrian space, evening the pavement, using transparent window displays in stores along the pavement, and constructing rain shelters can increase people's willingness to walk. The simulations of improved environments can provide references for countries improving the pedestrian environment. The contribution and innovation are to point out the differences in the motivation and goals of TOD in Asian and Western cities and propose improvements to increase people's willingness to walk to achieve TOD's goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a field study analysing how pedestrians walked for leisure purposes in a familiar urban area, and why they walked as they did. Using mobile-based GPS, the walking trajectories of 44 participants were recorded, followed by the administration of a post-walk survey. Results show that participants gravitated towards five distinct paths that were similar in length (three shorter and two longer paths), yet observably different with respect to specific street features. Correspondingly, participants rated street features associated with these differences as factors that either attracted them towards, or repelled them away, from walking in specific streets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cell phone use while walking escalates pedestrian safety risks, particularly among students, given their heavy reliance on these devices. Psychological factors wield significant influence on individual behavior, particularly among adolescents who navigate a blend of rational and social-reactive pathways in decision-making. Therefore, this paper employs the Prototype Willingness Model (PWM) to scrutinize psychological determinants of students' cell phone use while walking, drawing on data from 368 valid samples. Structural equation modeling (SEM) dissects the impact of psychological constructs on this behavior, highlighting the significance of both the social response and reasoning pathways within PWM. The study comprehensively analyzes direct, indirect, and overall effects of exogenous variables on behavioral intention and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey was carried out in Rome to investigate whether street luminance affects pedestrians’ comfort, visibility and perception. Forty people walked five roads and assessed on a questionnaire their walking comfort, visibility of people and background, perception of lighting intensity and uniformity. Results indicated that walking comfort was affected by mean luminance of whole scene, of sidewalk, of lateral wall and of human body; luminance also influenced the perception of street lighting intensity and uniformity and, to a lesser extent, the visibility of other people and of background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several researchers have modified the original Social Force Model (SFM) for pedestrians by including vehicles and simulating interaction behaviors in shared space layouts. The present study is conducted at a signalized intersection where the performance and functionality are defined by spontaneous order. The SFM was modified, and two-wheelers were added along with cars and pedestrians to analyze their interactions. The Hybrid Calibration Method was adopted to calibrate the interaction parameters utilizing an optimization technique and real-time data from the study site. It can be concluded from the parameter values that the strength of interaction reduced as the range between the road agents increased. The findings can aid urban planners in visualizing the interaction behavior of pedestrians, cars, and two-wheelers. Moreover, the feasibility of introducing the shared space concept in India as an alternative to the conventional traffic planning system can also be determined during the designing phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green spaces are important elements of cities due to their benefits to residents' physical health, mental health and development, and social connections. Residents are more likely to experience green space benefits when they use them frequently and usage increases when amenities are accessible. Because lower-income households often have less reliable access to automobiles, examining access solely on the road network is inadequate. Do households across the socioeconomic spectrum have access to green space on pedestrian and bicycle networks? After estimating residential locations (origins) from U.S. Census data and park and other green space locations (destinations) from the City of Albuquerque data, we connect the two using service area network analyses in a geographic information system (GIS). Findings suggest that overall green space access is a concern since less than 50% of Albuquerque residents have access to a green space within 400 m, indicating levels below those recommended by the World Health Organization. Park accessibility is relatively equally distributed for low-, middle-, and high-income households across both pedestrian and road networks. Access to other green space is a source of possible inequity with high-income households having more than five times the access to non-park green spaces than low-income households. The bike network presents another source of possible inequity as 39% of high-income households have access to the bike network versus only 30% of low-income households and an expansion of the bike network is a primary recommendation for increasing access in an equitable fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study aimed to evaluate the preferences, expectations, and sense of safety of blind or visually impaired persons regarding three types of pedestrian phasing with audible pedestrian signals configurations that exist in Quebec City (Canada). These include: 1) exclusive phasing with non-directional audible pedestrian signals; 2) exclusive phasing with directional audible pedestrian signals; and 3) concurrent phasing with directional audible pedestrian signals. Thirty-two blind or visually impaired persons were asked to complete a survey. Their preferences and expectations regarding audible pedestrian signals were documented through a series of simulations. Their sense of safety regarding the three existing configurations were also documented. Subsequently, semi-directed, individual interviews with 11 of the individuals who had completed the survey were conducted to build off the collected information. No formal consensus regarding many of the issues discussed were established as participants' responses varied too significantly. However, findings suggest that the exclusive phasing with directional audible pedestrian signals configuration is perceived to be the safest option by the participants. This study may have practical implications on the design of intersections (e.g., selection of a type of pedestrian phasing with audible pedestrian signal) and the training of blind or visually impaired pedestrians. The addition of audible pedestrian signals to pedestrian signals heightens the sense of safety of blind or visually impaired persons. This study may have practical implications on the design of intersections with audible pedestrian signals and the selection of a type of audible pedestrian signals based on intersection characteristics. Since many participants reported a lower sense of safety when faced with concurrent phasing, it is recommended that more intensive orientation and mobility interventions be provided to blind or visually impaired pedestrians who use this type of traffic signals. Educating road users about blind or visually impaired pedestrians appears also essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The First Egongyan Bridge in Chongqing, China was opened to traffic on December 27, 2000. It carries six-lanes of city traffic and two pedestrian paths, one on each side. It is a 600 m span suspension bridge. It was planned that the two pedestrian paths might eventually be converted to transit tracks in the future. However, with the rapid increase in urban traffic, the deck was transformed into an 8-lane bridge instead. Therefore, a new bridge parallel and adjacent to the old bridge was built for the rail transit. For aesthetic reasons, the city decided that the new bridge should also be a suspension bridge, with the same span length and tower height as the first bridge. The First Egongyan Bridge was a true suspension bridge with main cables anchored to ground anchors. However, the new bridge bridge's proximity to the first bridge necessitated the construction of a self-anchored suspension bridge that did away with a second set of ground anchors. This 600 m span happened to be the world's longest span for a self-anchored suspension bridge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walkability is generally defined by the extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking by promoting pedestrian comfort, connectivity and convenience. This paper scrutinizes the steps taken in Johannesburg to develop walkability policies and projects. It draws on empirical evidence from the pedestrian policies (e.g., the Corridors of Freedom) and pedestrian projects (e.g., the Grayston Pedestrian Bridge) recently introduced. Rather than focusing on the merits of walkability or the ease of its application, this paper highlights the misunderstandings of introducing walkability in Johannesburg. The concept is particularly problematic in Johannesburg, where the "unpleasantness of walking" and "walkability-with-people" is insufficiently considered. In a broader sense, this discussion aims to first understand urban planning in an African/Global South city, and then to decolonize transport planning by bringing the experiences in Johannesburg to the forefront. Such a critical reading of the intertwined and overlapping practices of policymaking provides additional insights into the processes of urban planning and transport in Johannesburg and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is based on the adaptation and validation in French of the Pedestrian Receptivity Questionnaire for Fully Autonomous Vehicles (PRQF). Faced with the emergence of numerous issues related to interactions between pedestrians and fully autonomous vehicles (FAV), this questionnaire is a reliable and scientifically valid means of collecting pedestrian experiences when they cross a road in front of an autonomous vehicle. The translation methodology of the PRQF was based on a committee approach, which consisted of asking several bilingual experts to come to an agreement on a consensual translation. The validation of the French PRQF (F-PRQF) was based on the completion of 584 questionnaires. Different psychometric tests were carried out, including an accuracy analysis, a principal component factor analysis (PCA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Our results show that the F-PQRF displays satisfactory psychometric qualities, in particular in terms of internal consistency (α = 0.932 and ω = 0.935). We also find a scale with five components, which confirms the theoretical model structure of the original scale. The F-PRQF showed good psychometric qualities, which should thus facilitate research in fully autonomous vehicles among French-speaking audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

''Using eye-tracking technology, this study examined hazard detection at night. Using a 2 (younger versus older) x 2 (simulator versus on road) repeated-measures mixed design, 16 older adults and 17 younger adults drove their own vehicle and on a driving simulator under nighttime conditions wearing eye tracking technology. Both driving conditions had three roadway hazards of pedestrians looking at their cell phone while posed to cross the roadway. Pupil glances were recorded using outcome measures of total fixation duration, number of fixations, and time to first fixation. Results showed older adults detected hazards similarly to younger adults, especially during on-road performance. Night hazard detection was similar across driving conditions except for time to first fixation, which was faster on-road for both age groups. Results support potential use of driving simulators as a proxy for on-road with night driving needed for research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an econometric modelling framework to unravel the communication and mobility issues of visually impaired pedestrians in the context of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs). The research uses a dataset collected through a tailor-made stated-preference survey given to visually impaired pedestrians and provides evidence-based recommendations on communication techniques. The recommendations are based on the findings of a structural equation model (SEM) estimated using the survey data. The latent factors 'safety and security' and 'importance of hearing' are generated using a confirmatory factor analysis embedded in the SEM. The results from the model show that these two factors have negative influences on how much a visually impaired pedestrian trusts the use of CAVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the crossing scenarios of pedestrians and autonomous vehicles (AVs) at unsignalized road sections, this study proposes an evolutionary game model considering the related benefits of AVs, pedestrians and traffic managers, and it explores the impact of policy intervention. The game analysis results indicate that strategies of the three agents are closely associated with pedestrians' trust in driverless technology, human-vehicle communication and government regulation. In cases where regulation exists, increasing the AV supervision threat would facilitate the equilibrium to evolve toward pedestrians crossing and AVs yielding. In addition, we unexpectedly find that the introduction of crash probability information cannot boost the equilibrium outcomes in the expected direction, which may be related to information overload. Finally, this study verifies the validity of the model through numerical simulations and provides managerial implications with respect to driverless technology promotion, communication device design and regulatory policy formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian casualties are a severe domestic as well as international problem. This study analyses the spatial distribution of pedestrian casualties to define contributory factors and delineate the means for their prediction. Three years of crash data were collected along with other factors and analysed using kernel density estimation (KDE), spatial autocorrelation (Moran's I), cluster K-Means, spatial regression, and general linear regressions (GLM). Kernel density estimate defines a cluster of pedestrian deaths within 1250 meters. According to Moran's I, 17/22 attributes about casualties, road networks, demographics, and land use have positive values, indicating similar importance clustering. The spatial pattern of pedestrian casualties is random and insignificant and does not change with time. Casualties are negatively related to the surrounding attributes, indicating a tendency towards dispersion. A K-Means analysis of multiple variables revealed that when variables included in the clustering were higher, the variance explanation percentage was lower. In the multi-variable GLM assuming Poisson distribution, the road network length alone or with the house permits combined were the best predictors of casualties. Classic regressions were not significantly enhanced by spatial dimension, and none of the autoregressive coefficients were significant. The predictions from the Poisson-based GLM model are similar to the classic regressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, the increase in pedestrian fatalities due to road traffic crashes (RTCs) on transport networks has been a major concern. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), pedestrians face a high risk due to RTCs on the rural highway network. The safety evaluation methods, such as observational before-after, empirical Bayes, full Bayes, and cross-sectional methods have been used to identify risk factors of RTCs. However, these methods are data-intensive and have associated limitations. Thus, this study employed a matched case--control method to identify the risk factors of fatal pedestrian crashes. This study utilized crash, traffic volume, speed, geometric, and roadside environment data of a 175 km six-lane rural highway in India. The identified major risk factors, such as clear zone width, the presence of habitation, service roads, and horizontal curve sections, increase the likelihood of a fatal pedestrian crash. This study provides specific insights for modifying the speed limit of highway sections passing through habitation. On such highway sections, designers should shift focus to pedestrian safety. It also suggests that the service road design needs to be reconsidered from a pedestrian safety viewpoint. The proposed method can be used in any other setting having similar traffic and socio-economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel Single-shot Multi-scale detection network with feature fusion and multi-scale attention mechanism is proposed for autonomous driving. The proposed model is referred to as a Single-shot Multi-scale Attentive Detector (SSAD) and it would build feature relations of the feature map in the spatial space. The proposed network highlights pedestrian and vehicle regions on the extracted feature map and also suppresses irrelevant regions, from the global relation information and thereby providing reliable guidance for autonomous driving, while detecting smaller and occluded targets. SSAD design is simple, accurate and computationally efficient. Evaluation results of the proposed network on multiple datasets have achieved considerable and promising results. Experimental results show that the SSAD network when tested on Pascal Voc-2007, INRIA, Caltech, and City Persons datasets, outperforms many state-of-the-art (SOTA) detectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrians might face more dangers and sustain severer injuries in crashes than others. Also, the crash data has inherent patterns related to both space and time. Crashes that happened in locations with highly aggregated uptrend patterns should be worth exploring to examine the most recently deteriorative factors affecting pedestrian-injury severities in crashes. Therefore, applying proper modeling approaches is needed to identify the causes of pedestrian-vehicle crashes to improve pedestrian safety. In this study, an emerging hotspot analysis is firstly utilized to identify the most targeted hotspots, followed by a proposed XGBoost model that analyzes the most recently deteriorative factors affecting pedestrian injury severities. The overall accuracy of the best model on the hotspot dataset is 94.49%, which shows a relatively high performance compared to conventional models. Seven factors are identified to increase the likelihood of fatal injury, including "land development: farm, wood and pasture" (FWP), "interstate", "US route", "hit and run", "alcohol-impaired driver" (AID), "urban", and "alcohol-impaired-pedestrian". While for incapacitating injury, there are five significant factors including "work zone", "interstate", "US route", "curved roadway" and "alcohol-impaired-pedestrian". The results of this research could give a solid reference for the identification of contributing factors affecting pedestrian-injury severities to policymakers and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to understand the factors that contribute to the frequency of both the total pedestrian-vehicle collisions and collisions that involve pedestrian violations and identify collision-prone areas. The two Full Bayes (FB) macro-level models were applied to historical collision records of the City of Hamilton to identify the collision-prone zones and the key factors that contribute to collision occurrence in TAZs. Finally, a self-organizing map (SOM) deep learning model was developed to identify collision-prone zones for the two collision classes. The results showed that the SOM model identified collision-prone zones with a high accuracy that exceeded the traditional Bayesian approach, based on the developed consistency test. As for the total collisions, the SOM model revealed that intersection density is the most important factor in distinguishing between collision-prone and non-collision-prone zones, followed by the pedestrian network directness and the proportion of residential land uses. As for the collisions that involved pedestrian violations, intersection density was also found to be the most important factor, followed by the density of bike-share stations and parking lots in a TAZ. The results of this study could aid planners in designing pedestrian-friendly networks and develop specific recommendations to enhance safety in unsafe zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At least 68 cities in the United States have taken a Vision Zero pledge to eliminate traffic fatalities. Which cities have improved their traffic safety outcomes and which strategies have proven effective? We examined changes in counts and per capita rates of all, pedestrian, and bicyclist fatal motor vehicle collisions between 2007 and 2019 for 18 U.S. cities that took early Vision Zero pledges. Only 2 of the 18 cities have experienced statistically significant decreases in total fatalities since taking a Vision Zero pledge and only one city experienced a statistically significant decrease in pedestrian fatalities. Cities with high walking, biking, and transit mode share and those that focused on walking and biking in their Vision Zero action plans experienced the best outcomes. Cities with high population densities and those that focused on technology in their action plans were also found to have safety performance improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ordinary circumstances, many scholars take for granted the fact that pedestrians are mostly walkers, probably because they perceive runners as constituting a marginal population to whom they pay little attention. However, at the early stage of the coronavirus pandemic, runners became the focus of heated controversies. Could locked-down people be allowed to run for their health and mental wellbeing, or was the egoistic pleasure of runners unacceptable at such a time that called for solidarity? Given their increased exhalation, did runners pose a threat to walking pedestrians? This paper addresses these issues, based on a collection of 1,638 messages posted on an online forum, on the topic 'Is it irresponsible to go running at this time?' during the French lockdown and the subsequent weeks. The analysis of this material shows how walkers and runners became wary of each other because the other might be infected. The repetition of this experience led people to question their respective behaviors and identities, their right to occupy the public space and the meaning of their practice. It also led them to value part of it, such as the connection with nature – the Covid-19 experience thus contributed to reshuffle the pedestrian order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To identify factors that contribute to near-miss collisions between pedestrians and personal transportation devices (PTDs) in a university campus using a novel data collection method, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). A total of 3,349 pedestrians and 173 PTD riders were detected through UAV observations. The researchers employed UAV technology to capture and geocode the interactions and behavior of pedestrians and PTD riders. Then, a multilevel logistic regression model examined factors that contribute to near-miss collisions between pedestrians and PTDs. The model outputs indicate that higher speed, non-bicycle PTDs (eg, skateboard and scooter), and some preventive actions, like reducing speed, deviating, and weaving, increase the probability of a PTD rider getting involved in a near-miss collision. Findings can guide campus planners to redesign the streets as a safe environment for all transportation modes and implement appropriate regulations and education programs, especially for non-bicycle PTD riders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, the uncontrolled interaction of human and high-speed vehicular activities at settlement areas along highways in Ghana has resulted in many pedestrian fatalities and injuries. This phenomenon has been attributed to the land-use and right-of-way planning and lack of pedestrian crossing facilities for safe crossing of highways. The slow response to developing strategies to reduce pedestrian fatalities along the nation's highways has led to many public protests. To advance a data-driven and evidence-based approach to finding appropriate countermeasures, this study investigated the factors associated with pedestrian injury outcomes of inter-urban highway crashes in Ghana. Latent class multinomial logit modeling method was employed to account for unobserved heterogeneity in a five-year pedestrian-vehicle crash data recorded on highways in Ghana. The model estimation results show that speeding, hit and run and crashes that involve buses were more likely to result in fatal injury while crashes that occurred at highway sections with no shoulder were more likely to result in hospitalized injury. The findings of the study provide basis for the development of appropriate countermeasures to reduce the number of pedestrian deaths and injuries on high-speed inter-urban highways in Ghana and other countries with similar characteristics in the sub-region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a trajectory prediction method that takes into account pedestrian behavior. To realize safe automated driving in urban areas, it is necessary to predict the future movements of road users. Pedestrians entering the vehicle's direction are a target of interest, but they are difficult to predict because they change their behavior through significant interactions with the vehicle. In this study, we first predict whether pedestrians will yield the way to a vehicle. Next, the predictions are then used to predict the future trajectories of all road users in the scene. The proposed model consists of two neural network structures: the Yielding judgment module to predict pedestrian behavior and the Trajectory prediction module. The yielding judgment module provides intuitive and easily understandable indicators, which also helps to increase the interpretability of the overall model. We evaluated the usefulness of the proposed model using a publicly available dataset. The proposed method was found to reduce the average displacement error by 2.79% and the final displacement error by 2.70% compared to the case where the target pedestrian's behavior is not considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trauma disproportionately affects vulnerable road users, especially the elderly. We analyzed the spatial distribution of elderly pedestrians struck by vehicles in the urban area of Maringa city, from 2014 to 2018. Hotspots were obtained by kernel density estimation and wavelet analysis. The relationship between spatial relative risks (RR) of elderly run-overs and the built environment was assessed through Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Incidents were more frequent in the central and southeast regions of the city, where the RR was up to 2.58 times higher. The QCA test found a significant association between elderly pedestrian victims and the presence of traffic lights, medical centers/hospitals, roundabouts and schools. There is an association between higher risk of elderly pedestrians collisions and specific elements of built environments in Maringa, providing fundamental data to help guide public policies to improve urban mobility aimed at protecting vulnerable road users and planning an age-friendly city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on pedestrian deaths and injuries at the urban level in Africa mostly provide overall aggregated figures and do not examine variation in the sub-urban units. Using cluster analysis, this study sought to determine if the observed pattern in the distribution of pedestrian injuries and deaths among parishes in Kampala city is significant. Pedestrian crash data from 2015 to 2019 were collected from the Uganda Traffic Police database. Serious and fatal pedestrian injury rates were mapped by parish using ArcMap and cluster analyses conducted. Results from spatial autocorrelation (Moran's Index of 0.18 and 0.17 for fatal and serious injury rates respectively) showed that the distributions were clustered within parishes crossed by highways and located in the inner city respectively. Z-scores of 3.32 (p < 0.01) for serious injury rates and 3.71 (p < 0.01) for fatal injury rates indicated that the clustering was not random. This study's main contribution was providing a detailed spatial distribution of pedestrian fatal and serious injury rates for Kampala; a city in a low developing country in Africa at the micro-scale of a parish. This foundational exploratory paper formed the first step of a broader study examining built environment factors explaining this pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic fatalities from 2015 to 2019 in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India show that pedestrians and cyclists have the largest share of total road fatalities. This study analyzed the pedestrian's perceptions of risk in the medium-sized city-Bulandshahr-UP, India regarding the traffic and road features. Perception of risk provides important information in identifying potential risks and explaining travel choices by pedestrians. The study locations were selected based on identified blackspots i.e. clustering of actual fatal crashes during 2015–2019 in UP. The types of locations at the blackspots were intersections below flyover, four-way signalized intersections, midblocks and foot of flyovers. An empirical analysis is presented in the study by taking pedestrians' ranking of the selected risk factors like traffic speed, free left turn at intersections, unmarked crosswalks, median width, traffic volume and the number of lanes and using the Rank-ordered logit model. Traffic speed and median width were ranked as the two highest risk factors by pedestrians. The results also indicated that increased numbers of lanes are more likely to be perceived riskier by older age groups of pedestrians and females at intersections below flyovers and midblocks. A comparison of different locations shows that all the factors were significant at four-way signalized intersections, indicating more perceived risk by pedestrians at intersections. These significant results can be used by practitioners to design safer intersections and midblocks at selected locations for pedestrians in UP, India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conduct a systematic scoping review of the academic literature concerning pedestrian accessibility. We distinguish "walking accessibility" from the broader topic of "walkability" by two criteria: papers must consider one or more destination type(s), and papers must address the issue of distance or impedance. After searching Web of Science, TRID, and Google Scholar databases and conducting screening, we identify 85 papers meeting these criteria. We organise the literature review according to the four components of accessibility identified by Geurs and van Wee [(2004). Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: Review and research directions. Journal of Transport Geography, 12(2), 127–140]: (1) Land use; (2) transport; (3) temporal; and (4) individual and also add a section on the topic of impedance. Walking accessibility studies address a much greater range of land uses or destination types than is typically found for other modes. The transportation component is relatively undeveloped, as pedestrian infrastructure includes many influential elements not currently tracked in GIS systems. Few studies address the temporal component of walk accessibility, which varies according to climatic and nighttime conditions. Most papers do not account for the significant variation across individual capabilities and preferences regarding walking. We note that developing detailed pedestrian networks is a key first step, as most published analysis is conducted on roadway networks. A second major recommendation is to consider individual variations in walk accessibility across demographic classifications, accounting for varying levels of physical mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walking provides numerous benefits to older persons, but its practice is hindered by social factors and the built environment. This article aims to understand the factors that encourage or discourage older people's walking behaviors, as well as the policies influencing those factors in Chile. It does so by reporting the analysis of twenty-five semi-structured interviews with Chilean policymakers and local leaders. The experts consistently represented walking as a beneficial activity for older persons that, nonetheless, occurs in adverse built environments. They asserted that the absence of older people in the public discussion and a top-down policy-making structure hamper its promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated vehicles (AVs) need to be trusted by cyclists and pedestrians where they will share the road. To test trust, cyclists and pedestrians, and a comparison cohort of drivers, observed trials of both a road and simulator AV undertaking three common priority-based maneuvers: a right turn into a side road, overtaking a parked car, and passing over a pedestrian priority (zebra) crossing. The AV made the maneuvers either giving way, or not giving way, to a pedestrian or cyclist. One hundred and thirty-four participants aged 18 to 79 years were recruited based on being predominantly either a pedestrian, cyclist, or driver in their regular road use. For the on-road trials, the cyclist and pedestrian participants observed the AV maneuvers from the adjacent footway, and the driver participants observed from inside the AV. In the simulation environment, all participants were inside the automated vehicle. Trust scores were higher when participants observed a maneuver where the AV had to give way to a cyclist, and this can be linked with the re-assurance provided by the behavior of the AV in such an encounter. There was no significant difference in trust by road user type (cyclist, pedestrian or driver), age or driving experience, suggesting messaging to road users about the impacts of automated vehicles need not be differentiated by road user type. There was some evidence of differences in trust, especially for more complex maneuvers, between the on-road trial and the simulator, suggesting a need for caution in reliance on simulation-only experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fatal crashes involving Powered Two-Wheelers (PTWs) are a major health concern in South Korea due to the increase in their usage in the logistics industry. Owing to the way, they are operated on the roadways, most riders end up in fatal crashes. Interestingly, little research exists regarding the impact of risk factors on fatal crashes involving at-fault PTW riders. This study employs a copula-based regression technique to simultaneously model the relationship between crash-risk factors and crash outcome metrics of fatal PTW rider-at-fault crashes, namely the number of crash casualties (casualty size) and the number of vehicles involved in a crash (crash size) at intersections and non-intersection segments. The proposed method was superior compared to the SEM-based bivariate regression approach, and the estimation results showed that there exists a positive relationship between both outcome variables. From the analysis, it was identified that while "other violations" comprising speeding and wrongful overtaking had varying effects on crash size outcomes at the intersection and non-intersection segments, variables such as daytime, winter, head-on collisions, and pedestrian involvement had positive impact on the crash consequence metrics irrespective of the crash location. Insights drawn from the study are used in recommending appropriate countermeasures for improving PTW safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring traffic at locations where bicyclists and pedestrians are present and studying their interactions with motorized vehicles has the potential to reveal underlying crash mechanisms and, in turn, guide the implementation of suitable countermeasures. Previous research has demonstrated the capabilities of vision-based systems in traffic monitoring; however, as these systems rely on video camera data, they remain constrained in adverse lighting and weather conditions. Although radar-based sensors can be used in traffic monitoring, they have not been tested in multimodal environments. To bridge this gap a novel framework to classify trajectories recorded by radar-based sensors in multimodal traffic environments is developed. The Support Vector Machine is used as the classifier and the following aspects allow to develop a robust, flexible, and transferable classification framework that can be applied in various traffic scenes. The SVM employs (1) a speed and length or speed and acceleration feature vector, (2) trajectory normalization scheme (i.e., select multiple measurements per trajectory), (3) training sample balancing strategy, and (4) cross-validation strategy. The framework is tested and validated using data from two different multimodal intersections. The results suggest that the mode type for every trajectory can be predicted with 95% accuracy using ten speed measurements and the vehicle's mean length while accounting for the unequal number of observations per class. While these results are subject to change, i.e., both SVM's input (feature vector and/or balancing approach) and performance may vary across different traffic scenes, the proposed framework is transferable and flexible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions between pedestrians and autonomous personal mobility vehicle (APMV) will increase with the popularity of autonomous driving systems. However, when the APMVs are applied in a mixed traffic environment after manual driving PMV (MPMV) have been popular, pedestrians may feel unsafe in the interactions when they are uncertain about the driving intention of the APMV. This study seeks to find a surrogate measure for pedestrians' understanding of driving intention and perceived safety during the interaction with an APMV. We conducted an experiment to measure the gaze duration and subjective evaluations of the participants when they interacted with a PMV in manual and autonomous driving modes. Pedestrians fixed their gaze at the APMV longer when they did not accurately understand the driving intention than when they understood it. Furthermore, the pedestrians perceived danger when they did not clearly understand the driving intention of the APMV. Besides, these factors were different when pedestrians interact with an MPMV and an APMV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates factors associated with fatal and severe injury pedestrian crash percentages at intersections in Colorado. Many published studies associate road and traveler characteristics with the frequency or severity of pedestrian crashes without reference to specific locations. The objective of this study is to determine whether road and traveler characteristics, aggregated by intersection, partly explain differences in severe crash percentages at intersections. From 2006 to 2018, there were a total of 17,047 reported crashes involving pedestrians and motor vehicles in all of Colorado. This study analyzes 3,015 of these crashes that had the GPS coordinates needed to identify their locations at intersections and included the information needed to identify the pedestrian outcomes of the crash. The results of logistic and linear regressions found that lighting condition, vehicle speed, turning movement of vehicle, vehicle type, pedestrian age, and driver or pedestrian impairment by drugs or alcohol were most associated with severe crash percentages at intersections. These findings identify crash characteristics at intersections with higher severe crash proportions that can potentially be addressed to improve safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examined the extent, demographics and risks for child pedestrian, burns and drowning mortality in Johannesburg. Information on the demographics, scene and temporal circumstances for childhood injury deaths from 2000 to 2010 was gleaned from the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System. Descriptive statistical methods were used. The study recorded 756 pedestrian (8.7/100,000), 439 drowning (5.1/100,000), and 399 burn injury deaths (4.6/100,000) among children aged 0–14 years. Male children were the main victims, with male-to-female ratios of 2.3 for drowning, 1.7 for pedestrian and 1.2 for burn mortality. The pattern of child mortality differed across age groups with older children recording higher rates for pedestrian deaths and younger children higher rates for the non-traffic deaths. Pedestrian and burn mortality especially affected black children, while drowning affected both black and white children. The time, day and month of greatest injury mortality varied by injury cause, with e.g. pedestrian mortality common in afternoons and evenings, weekends, and dispersed across the year although increasing towards year end. The study highlighted the salience of differentiating risks for childhood injuries by discrete external cause for purposes of informing prevention responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users and pedestrian crashes are a major concern both for their number and their severity. In Italy, pedestrians account for 34% of the road fatalities in urban area. To improve pedestrian safety, this study is aimed at analysing the roadway, environmental, vehicle, driver and pedestrian-related factors that are associated with fatal pedestrian crashes in Italy and providing insights for the development of effective countermeasures. This study used an econometric model, the mixed logit model, and a machine learning algorithm, the association rules, to analyse 101,032 pedestrian crashes that occurred in Italy. Study results identified several factors associated with fatal pedestrian crashes. The mixed logit identified 46 significant indicator variables (1 with random parameter), and the association rules provided 119 valid rules. F-measure and G-mean showed higher prediction performance of the mixed logit over the association rules. Study results recommend using both models as complementary approaches since their combination is effective in providing meaningful insights about pedestrian crash contributory factors and their interdependencies. To address the contributory factors identified by the study, behavioural/engineering pedestrian safety countermeasures are recommended. The findings provided new insights for transportation agencies to develop effective countermeasures for pedestrian safety improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian safety is a serious concern in the developing nations of the world. It is evident from the past studies that built-environment characteristics near bus-stops, play a crucial role on the frequency and overall share of pedestrian deaths and injuries in road traffic crashes. The present study aims to identify critical built-environment features around vulnerable bus-stops in an Indian city and evaluate the odds of risk that prevails on the safety of pedestrians near bus stops. Hotspot analysis was conducted to finalise 177 bus stop sites within high-crash clusters in the study area. Built-environment attributes considered were based on sidewalk, crosswalk and bus stop conditions near such vulnerable locations. This study includes a video graphic and manual field survey conducted during the day and night-time. Logistic regression was applied to estimate the impact of built environment features on pedestrian crashes. Width and disability friendliness of sidewalks, presence of bus bays and on-street parking have significant impacts on pedestrian fatalities at locations with a higher share of pedestrian fatalities during the day. On the other hand, presence of zebra crossings at junctions, proper bus stop lighting and high sidewalks reduce the odds of pedestrian crashes at night near bus stops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determine the temporal and spatial characteristics of stairs versus elevator use in a university residence hall to inform future physical activity promotion efforts. All residents and visitors for a single, four-story residence hall dormitory building located on a college campus in Orange, CA. Smart mat systems capable of detecting pedestrian traffic were placed in front of the stairs and elevators on each floor plus a basement. Generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) were used to compare stair versus elevator usage at different times of the day and on different floors. Stair versus elevator use varied much more throughout the day on floors nearest to the ground floor, with stair use most common in the morning. Overall, the elevator was used more frequently on higher floors, with less variation throughout the day. To be most effective, future stair promotion interventions should target residents on higher floors and in the morning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indoor navigation has been studied for many years, but it still has many limitations. In current navigation, pedestrians need to tell navigation systems the destination, because it is one of the preconditions for path planning. However, in some indoor cases, pedestrians cannot specify a destination because they have no information about where it is or even cannot be sure if there is a desired one. We believe that determining a service area is a possible way to handle such cases. For example, a service area that can be reached within a 2-min walk. In this paper, we propose an indoor service area determination approach for pedestrian navigation path planning. We demonstrate this approach in a shopping mall with multi-floors. The results show that it can successfully compute the reachable spaces and thereby helping people to select and arrive at the most appropriate destination. This approach is also useful for other indoor navigation applications within public buildings like offices, airports, theaters, hospitals, and museums where pedestrians would like to make a choice between multiple facilities of the same type, such as printers, registration desks, ATMs, AED, garbage bins, even exits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian level of service (PLOS) of sidewalks measures pedestrians' perceived satisfaction for walking conditions. Available PLOS models consider vehicular traffic, elements of built environment and user's perception of walking environment for PLOS assessment. The available PLOS models which use pedestrian perception on walking environment require extensive pedestrian survey and the model outcomes are subjective. Moreover these models do not consider pedestrian desires or expectations, which forms the basis of their perceived satisfaction. This work proposes a PLOS assessment framework for sidewalks which considers an exhaustive list of built and walking environment-related factors and the pedestrian perceived gap between desired and actual sidewalk conditions. The relative importance attached by pedestrians to each factor while assessing overall sidewalk condition was obtained through expert survey using Fuzzy Hierarchy Process. A framework for objectively assessing pedestrian perceived satisfaction level for different built and walking environment-related factors is also proposed in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visual limitations of drivers at night are a key contributing factor to the relatively high crash involvement of vulnerable road users including pedestrians, roadworkers and cyclists on night-time roads. Making vulnerable road users more conspicuous (recognisable, rather than simply visible) to oncoming drivers, is one approach to increasing their safety and has been a particular focus of my research. This review highlights the experimental approaches that our multidisciplinary research team have adopted to explore these issues, involving both closed and open road studies at night. One effective strategy to increase night-time conspicuity of vulnerable road users is clothing that includes retro-reflective materials on the moveable joints which, when illuminated in the headlight beam of oncoming vehicles, creates a strong sense of 'biological motion' or 'biomotion'. Our studies demonstrated that this basic visual perception allows drivers to accurately perceive the presence of a person, such as a pedestrian or cyclist, at much longer distances than when retro-reflective materials are positioned on the torso, as in high visibility vests. Subsequent studies demonstrated that the benefits of biomotion clothing are evident in cluttered environments, in the presence of glare, and for drivers of different ages and visual characteristics. Evidence gathered in these studies was instrumental in changing Australian and New Zealand standards governing high visibility clothing for roadworkers to include retro-reflective strips in the biomotion configuration. Ongoing studies are exploring how to make biomotion clothing attractive to vulnerable road users exercising at night, and how to ensure that the limitations of night-time vision and the importance of increasing night-time conspicuity are better understood. This body of research has involved collaborators from a range of disciplines who have been essential to understanding and addressing the visual challenges of night-time roads and assisted in translating this research into tangible benefits for night-time road safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban communities should now build in specific measures, addressing multimodality and fair distribution of public space. The transformation of arterials into multimodal corridors can be a key strategy that will shape new futures. The social acceptance of "push" measure that aim to modify road space allocation have never been examined following quantitative research methods. This study aspires to fill this gap now, as it is inspired by the great debate opened in Athens, Greece about "pop-up" interventions implemented in Panepistimiou Avenue. To explore the social acceptance factors, a rating experiment is designed by developing hypothetical scenarios, which are evaluated by different road users, daily car drivers, motorcycle riders, public transport (PT) users, cyclists, and walkers. A 5-point Likert Scale is utilized, and the collected observations are processed using ordinal logistic regression methods. The main findings suggest that the majority of the participants opted for solutions that ensured a rather equal or balanced space distribution, regardless of their preferred transport mode. Car users were willing to exchange their space, and consequently experience higher travel times for the greater benefit of the city, while public transport users, daily cyclists and walkers recognize the importance to maintain a good level of service for car users too. A surprising finding from this study case is that any increase in a pedestrian area, which is already sufficiently wide, influences negatively social acceptance, while the installation of a cycle lane reports considerably high probability to be accepted from all user groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Street vendors contribute to the unique identity and vibrancy of cities influencing the social, economic, and cultural landscape. Often, street vendors conduct their informal businesses on the sidewalks, which are meant to be used by pedestrians. This leads to a conflict in public space use and a question of whether street vendors are contributing to the vibrancy of a city or creating a nuisance to pedestrians. This research, based on a survey of 819 pedestrians in Addis Ababa city, discusses walking experience of pedestrians in the presence of intensive street vending activities on the sidewalk. The survey includes questions about the comfort and safety of pedestrians while walking on the sidewalk with the presence of street vendors. 49.3% of surveyed pedestrians thought that mobile street vendors impeded their ability to walk without difficulty on the sidewalk. 77.8% of those surveyed felt great discomfort as street vendors took up too much space on the sidewalk. 66.3% of respondents felt unsafe around street vendors during the day while 67.3% felt safe at night when the volume of street vending is reduced. This highlights that while street vendors have significant socioeconomic and cultural benefits, if their presence on the street is beyond the critical mass, they draw a feeling of discomfort for pedestrians more than creating liveliness for the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention-behavior relationship is examined in a keep-left experiment involving interactions of pedestrians and cyclists on a shared footpath in Singapore as a case study. Data collection entailed before-and-after on-site perception surveys and naturalistic observations from field-recorded video footages. The perception surveys involved 120 pedestrians and 119 cyclists in the before period, and 59 pedestrians and 60 cyclists in the after period. Movement profiles were captured for 303 pedestrians, 148 cyclists, and 90 pedestrian-cyclist interactions for the before period, and 262, 174, and 76, respectively for the after period. The findings suggest that the "keep left" markings on the footpath are generally effective in improving users' behavioral intention in keeping left. However, whereas cyclists did change their behavior, pedestrians did not do so which is rationalized as being due to their previously formed habit. The findings reveal a weak intention-behavior relationship for pedestrians' habitual behavior. As consistent with the unchanged pedestrians' behavior, no distinct changes in the pedestrian-cyclist interaction patterns were observed after the "keep left" treatment. There was no significant change in the perceived conflict level and the safety level as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrians who use wheelchairs (seated pedestrians) report 36% - 75% higher mortality rates than standing pedestrians in car-to-pedestrian collisions but the cause of this mortality is unknown. This is the first study to investigate the cause of seated pedestrian mortality in vehicle impacts using finite element simulations. In this study a manual wheelchair model was developed using geometry taken from publicly available CAD data, and was tested to meet ISO standards. The GHBMC 50th percentile male simplified occupant model was used as the seated pedestrian and the EuroNCAP family car and sports utility vehicle models were used as the impacting vehicles. The seated pedestrian was impacted by the two vehicles at three different locations on the vehicle and at 30 and 40 km/h. In 75% of the impacts the pedestrian was ejected from the wheelchair. In the rest of the impacts, the pedestrian and wheelchair were pinned to the vehicle and the pedestrian was not ejected. The underlying causes of seated pedestrian mortality in these impacts were head and brain injury. Life-threatening head injury risks (0.0% - 100%) were caused by the ground-pedestrian contact, and life-threatening brain injury risks (0.0 - 97.9%) were caused by the initial vehicle-wheelchair contact and ground-pedestrian contact. Thoracic and abdominal compression reported no risks of life-threatening injuries, but may do so in faster impacts or with different wheelchair designs. Protective equipment such as the wheelchair seatbelt or personal airbag may be useful in reducing injury risks but future research is required to investigate their efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to explore the road-crossing behavior of elderly pedestrians and whether time cues can effectively reduce the risk of crossing. Past studies on road-crossing decision-making mostly focus on the increased risk in older pedestrians due to diminished cognitive functions but often overlooked the impact of providing information about time. Therefore, this study examined the effects of assistive systems providing two different types of time information, namely, remaining time and arriving time, on road-crossing in older pedestrians under different traffic situations. The results showed that both assistive systems reduced the road-crossing response time and collision rate in older adults. In general, the "remaining time system" was more effective, especially in the combination of short vehicle gap and high vehicle speed. Remaining time was found to be more intuitive for road-crossing decision-making. These findings contribute to effective ways to reduce the risk of road crossing in elderly pedestrians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to identify the strategies adopted by drivers when confronted to an unexpected event, pedestrian crossing, and to test the influence of having (or not) a collision with the pedestrian when faced to others pedestrian. Fifty-three participants were submitted to a simulator circuit including three unexpected pedestrians crossing the road. The subjective alertness and tension were collected by the Thayer questionnaire before the drive and the pupillary diameter was measured using an eye-tracking device. The results show that physiological state is important in the early processes of the driving session because it determines the first experience with an unexpected event and the change inherent to this experience. In a second time, driving parameters, such as speed and used strategy for avoidance, have a higher importance to explain driving performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile phone distraction is a significant contributor to pedestrian injuries. However, mobile phone engagement among pedestrians has been scarcely explored in a developing country like India. The present study utilized the beliefs-based theory of planned behaviour to examine the association between pedestrian beliefs towards distracted walking (behavioural, normative, and control) and their mobile phone use frequencies. Based on a survey of 560 pedestrians (64.6% males), it was found that the major use of mobile phones was for listening to music (30.7%), followed by receiving a call (25%), making a call (18.9%), texting (9.8%), navigation (8.5%) and internet browsing (7.1%). A series of multivariate ANOVAs and logistic regression models were developed to investigate the relationships between the beliefs and frequencies of mobile phone use in hands-free and hand-held conditions. Significant multivariate differences were found for behavioural and normative beliefs in hands-free conditions and all three types of beliefs in hand-held conditions. The frequency of mobile phone use was significantly predicted by normative beliefs (p < 0.001) in the hands-free condition, and by behavioural (p = 0.041) and normative beliefs (p = 0.004) in the hand-held condition. The findings may assist the road safety countermeasures in addressing the issue of pedestrian distraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, over 25,000 pedestrian fatalities occur due to road crashes every year. While several studies have identified possible causative factors that contribute to these fatalities, little is known about how pedestrians perceive their surrounding environment. This study attempts to bridge this gap by analysing the pedestrian perception of the built environment and traffic-related aspects considering urban roads (arterial and sub-arterial). Fourteen parameters were selected to assess pedestrian perception, and four factors were derived through factor analysis. The obtained factor scores were then subjected to two-step cluster analysis to determine whether pedestrian perception is different for people from different socio-economic demographics with varying travel behaviour. Based on the results obtained from the descriptive analysis, the respondents were most satisfied with the 'quality of streetlights at sidewalks' and 'visibility/sight distances', while they were most dissatisfied with 'pedestrian volume at sidewalks' and 'lighting facilities at crossings'. From the cluster analysis, it can be summarized that female pedestrians walk less frequently than males and perceive a higher probability of collision or near-collision incidents against male pedestrians. The study findings can aid the policymakers in the assessment of the pedestrian perception of the existing road infrastructure and suggest improvements to ensure pedestrian safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a decentralized signal control algorithm that leverages connected vehicle information to improve traffic operations along arterials. The proposed algorithm obtains real-time vehicle locations and speeds, as well as information on pedestrians waiting to cross individual intersections, to optimize signal phasing and timing plans. Signal timing is optimized at individual intersections; however, information about vehicle platoons passing a given intersection is shared with neighboring intersections to facilitate natural coordination between adjacent intersections. The decentralized algorithm is compared to a centralized algorithm that optimizes signal timing at all intersections simultaneously, as well as a traditional coordination strategy. The proposed algorithm is shown both to be more computationally efficient than the centralized approach and provide better operational performance (in terms of person, vehicle and pedestrian delay) than both the centralized algorithm and the traditional strategy. The algorithm is robust to a range of demand patterns and can be applied under scenarios in which not all vehicles are connected or full information about pedestrian arrivals is not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to develop vehicular and pedestrians delay models for signalized midblock crosswalks under mixed traffic conditions. In this study, the primary data on pedestrian and vehicle flow characteristics were recorded using video-graphic technique. The mixed traffic characteristics and other field conditions were simulated in the Vissim micro-simulation tool. The traffic flow characteristics were calibrated and validated using GEH statistics, which came out to be 2.5. For modeling the pedestrian and vehicle delays, several scenarios were simulated by varying the traffic flow and traffic signal characteristics. For each scenario, the simulated delay values were recorded. Considering the data set simulated, the delay models were developed using multiple linear regression technique with 10-fold cross validation. These models were then validated which yielded an error (MAPE) of 17% and 13% in estimating pedestrian and vehicle delays respectively. These models can be used as a tool designing better pedestrian facilities at signalized midblock crosswalks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]