Pedestrian safety at urban mid-block crossings
The mid-block crossing is a common behaviour among people walking in urban areas. Where demand for crossing is high, it can result in increased crash risk. Most of these crashes are likely to result in pedestrian severe injuries or fatalities, especially when crash impact speeds are high. Despite pedestrian-orientated designs being constructed around cities, the risk exposure for pedestrian crashes continues to remain a challenge for road safety practitioners. Pedestrian crashes are not random events. They indicate not only an underlying environmental effect but also behavioural issues related to risk-taking. For this reason, this research aimed to obtain a comprehensive insight into pedestrian behaviour and factors that impact their safety across age and gender. Pedestrian safety is discussed from three perspectives: policy, urban design, and behaviour. By incorporating behavioural theories into the engineering discipline, this research promotes general principles to implement appropriate measures to reduce pedestrian-related traffic crashes at mid-blocks. To determine the causation and occurrence of pedestrian-related traffic crashes in New Zealand, the research began by examining crash data and road safety strategies from 2000 to 2016 and compared New Zealand to some of the best-performing countries in road safety. The findings reveal that stringent targets toward urban safety management and vulnerable road users have led to a significant move in reducing pedestrian crashes. In New Zealand, strategic plans gravitated initially toward the vehicle/driver system especially in urban areas and less on encouraging transport system user behaviour (including pedestrians) and therefore the safety of active mode choices. The Safe System approach has contributed to an overall reduction in death and serious injuries in New Zealand but to a lesser degree in pedestrian crashes. The gap between pedestrian safety outcomes and Vision Zero targets reaffirms a need for evidence-based research, especially behavioural and urban traffic systems regarding pedestrians. The findings contribute to the current knowledge by showing that investment lessons learned from other nations and New Zealand's past achievements are vital to developing practical solutions for pedestrian safety. It also provides a guideline to assess policy issues at a strategic level in any setting. The review of the crash data confirmed that behaviour is a critical contributing factor. To analyse pedestrian behaviour, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and habit formation was adopted to model pedestrians’ behavioural intention. The relation between intention, psychological variables and gender was investigated. Later, the effect of environmental factors on intended behaviour was examined. The results show that motivation to take risks at mid-block sections is set by personal goals, including saving time and reducing walking distance. Once the action is repeated, mid-block crossing behaviour turns into a habit, which exerts less conscious control. Norm is an influential factor that forms this habit. Pedestrians internalise the belief that this act is socially acceptable from friends and people, who are important to them, which then raises their intention to take a certain level of risk. In addition to habit, the environment surroundings can trigger an increased motivation or caution that results in additional care being taken due to heightened perceptions of risk. Complicated road lanes and adjacent land use lower the confidence of pedestrians and restrict their acceptance of the risk to cross under a given traffic condition. The findings contribute to the current knowledge by providing evidence that psychological factors have a significant impact on pedestrians’ decisions. While risky decisions predominantly work in automatic behavioural modes, deviating from more considered decisional behaviours, some forms of built environments can heighten pedestrians’ attention and therefore discourage their greater risk-taking. In this research, after pedestrian behavioural intentions were identified, pedestrian crossing behaviour and their safety margins were modelled using real-life observations. This was undertaken in two parts. The first part focused on the impact of social cues on pedestrian cautiousness between adolescents and adults, and the second part looked at the interaction between pedestrian assertiveness and driver yielding. The findings revealed that adolescent pedestrians are to some degree risk-averse as much as older generations regardless of gender. It is postured that they are more prone to engage in risky behaviours than adults largely due to peer pressure. An explicit communication by pedestrians such as using hand gestures, helps most pedestrians to negotiate priority with drivers and increases the willingness of drivers to yield. This cue works well when the vehicle speed is low or a part of a vehicle platoon. The finding is significant as it shows how simple social influences can facilitate this habit. It contributes to the current knowledge that the strength of group members (friend/other pedestrians) and immediacy (closeness in space) impact pedestrians’ risky crossing behaviour and their decisions outcome in relation to its safety margin. This research provides an insight into pedestrian behaviours of various user groups. The method integrates various quantitative measures bridging the gap between behavioural intentions and actual behaviours. The findings enable decision-makers and practitioners to identify common safety issues and incorporate new approaches that can lead towards achieving New Zealand’s ambitious road safety targets (e.g., Road to Zero 2050). As the safe use of road space is situationally and individually different, urban designers should not only meet a standard requirement of engineering but acknowledge the variance in human factors. Embracing a multidisciplinary approach, flexibility and ease of application and providing a niche intervention for different population groups can help increase user safety culture and road safety outcomes.
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