Built Environment Factors Contributing to Pedestrian Collisions: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

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.

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

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Porter, Emily
  • Schorr, Justin
  • Hamdar, Samer H
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Built environment; Factor analysis; Highway factors in crashes; Pedestrian safety; Pedestrian vehicle crashes; Structural equation modeling
• Identifier Terms: National Automotive Sampling System
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01556691
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-5663
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 12 2015 7:52AM