The impact of waiting time and other factors on dangerous pedestrian crossings and violations at signalized intersections: A case study in Montreal

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2013.09.010Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Data of pedestrian crossings and violations was collected in thirteen intersections.

  • Several factors were linked to the likelihood of traffic light violation.

  • Known factors are age, gender, group size, pedestrian flow and signal presence.

  • New factors were identified such as the maximum waiting time and clearing time.

  • Results underline the importance of delay and controls on pedestrian behavior.

Abstract

Pedestrian violations of traffic signals and dangerous crossings at intersections are common. The objective of this study is to determine the impact of pedestrian waiting time at an intersection on the proportion and type of pedestrian violations and dangerous crossings. The amount of waiting depends on signal phasing, time of arrival, and the presence of a pedestrian signal. Thirteen intersections with similar geometry and traffic conditions but different maximum waiting times, seven of which had a pedestrian signal, were observed over at least 2 h to collect crossing information. Data was collected manually for the main analysis and complementary video data was used for validation.

Several factors were identified as having an impact on the proportion of pedestrian violations. In accordance with the literature, age, sex, group size, pedestrian flow and pedestrian signals are associated to pedestrian violations. In addition, other factors were identified in this research, such as maximum waiting time (red phase). It was also determined that an intersection clearing time had an impact on violations and on the proportion of dangerous crossings committed. Also, pedestrians’ speeds depended on the type of crossing. The results underline the importance of providing pedestrian signals including countdown displays, which is significantly and negatively linked to dangerous violations and crossings. The results also highlight the importance of pedestrian maximum waiting time as well as clearing time. When designing cycle and phase lengths, particular attention should be paid to pedestrian waiting times that are positively correlated to violations. Minimizing waiting times for pedestrians is expected to reduce dangerous pedestrian behaviors at signalized intersections.

Introduction

Pedestrian safety in urban areas is an issue of growing concern. Pedestrian injuries represent an important proportion of total traffic-related injuries in Canada. Between 2004 and 2006, pedestrians represented about 13% of traffic fatalities with an average of 363 pedestrians killed each year (Transport Canada, 2010). In Canadian cities like Montreal, intersections are the most critical roadway elements with a high concentration of vehicle–pedestrian crashes – approximately 60% of pedestrians injuries happened at intersections in this city (Morency and Cloutier, 2005). This is not surprising, given the fact that intersections are where pedestrians are exposed to motorized traffic and are the most vulnerable. They are even more vulnerable when crossing outside of an intersection crosswalk or during a red-light phase at a signalized intersection, since other road users will not expect their encounter.

To enhance pedestrian safety, local authorities are seeking a combination of appropriate interventions, often referred to as the 3 E’s – engineering, enforcement and education. This reflects the fact that traffic-related pedestrian injuries can be the result of one or multiple contributing factors including human behavior, road design, and built environment. Many recent studies have highlighted the important role of road and built environment factors on pedestrian safety (Elvik, 2009, Miranda-Moreno et al., 2011, Harwood et al., 2008). Some studies have also demonstrated the importance of human factors. A few past works have investigated the factors associated with risky behavior of pedestrians, such as red-light violations – (Guo et al., 2011, Li and Fernie, 2010, Lipovac et al., in press, Ren et al., 2011, Rosenbloom, 2009, Van Houten et al., 2007). While pedestrian–vehicle encounters rarely lead to collisions, pedestrian violations are an important factor in pedestrian fatalities. For instance, pedestrian violations contribute to 13% of the pedestrian fatalities in Canada, (Transport Canada, 2010). Pedestrian violations include crossing outside of designated markings, failure to yield to vehicles and crossing during a red-light phase. In the literature, violations have been associated with individual characteristics (age and gender) (Guo et al., 2011, Rosenbloom, 2009, Tiwari et al., 2007, Yagil, 2000, Zhuang and Wu, 2011), personal attitudes such as attitude towards subjective norms and social conformity (Evans and Norman, 1998, Moyano Diaz, 2002, Zhou et al., 2009), level of pedestrian density, group size (Rosenbloom, 2009, Zhuang and Wu, 2011), vehicular traffic conditions (Wang et al., 2011, Yagil, 2000, Yang et al., 2005), waiting time duration (Li and Fernie, 2010, Tiwari et al., 2007, Van Houten et al., 2007), length of the crossing (Cambon de Lavalette et al., 2009, Cinnamon et al., 2011), weather conditions (Li and Fernie, 2010, Yang et al., 2005), land use (Cinnamon et al., 2011, Zhuang and Wu, 2011) and trip purpose (Guo et al., 2011). These findings suggest that interventions to address traffic-rule violations should include enforcement and education actions as well as engineering countermeasures, such as the appropriate design of road geometry and traffic controls.

Despite the growing literature on this subject, very few empirical studies exist on effects of the maximum waiting time (red phase), pedestrian time of arrival at an intersection (moment during a phase at which the pedestrian arrived at an intersection approach), and the presence of a pedestrian signal, in particular in the North American context. Past studies have not classified and modeled violations according to the moment of the crossing with respect to the pedestrian signal. Previous studies have involved a very small sample of intersections in the analysis. Also, the use of video data for validation has been little explored.

This paper presents an analysis of pedestrian violations and dangerous crossings at signalized intersections and their relationship with factors such as maximum waiting time, time of arrival, and the presence of a pedestrian signal. These factors have been rarely studied simultaneously and this study adds to the previous ones by examining wait times based on arrival time during the cycle. Moreover, the sample of studied intersections is one of the largest considered in studies of this type. A discrete choice modeling approach is used to model violation types. In addition, video data is collected for two intersections and processed for validation.

The background of this work is presented in the next section. It is followed by a description of the proposed methodology, the presentation and discussion of the experimental results, and the conclusion.

Section snippets

Background

Factors associated with pedestrian crossing behavior have been widely studied. These factors are related to the individual characteristics, environment, and other pedestrians’ and road users’ behavior, and may have combined effects. Studies have determined that men have a tendency to commit more violations than women (Moyano Diaz, 2002, Rosenbloom, 2009, Tiwari et al., 2007, Yagil, 2000) and young adults tend to violate a traffic light more often than other age groups. As people age, they are

Definitions and methodology

Based on the Quebec Highway Safety Code (QHSC), violations in this study are crossings that started on the yellow light, red light, steady hand, or on the flashing hand (with the exception of countdown displays, in which case only finishing on the steady hand is a violation).

Results and discussion

Results are presented in three parts: exploratory analysis, video-based validation and trajectory visualization, and statistical regression modeling results.

Conclusion

This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of pedestrian waiting time (due to phasing length and time of arrival), of time of arrival, and of the presence of a pedestrian signal on the proportion of pedestrian violations and dangerous crossings. Variables such as being male, being a young adult, and intersection MWT increased the proportion of violations. Other variables decreased the probability of violations, such as the presence of a pedestrian signal or group size. The results

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the help of Jean-Simon Bourdeau, Aleksiina Chapman Lahti, Georges Rizkallah, Abdessalih Sedrati, Thomas Nosal, and Aurélien Taine who participated in the data collection, and the Montreal borough of Plateau Mont-Royal for the opportunity to collect count and video data. The authors thank Thomas Nosal for proofreading the manuscript and the anonymous journal reviewers for their helpful comments. We would like also to acknowledge the financial support of the Fonds

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