The Role of Built Environment on Pedestrian Safety and Pedestrian Activity at Urban Signalized Intersections

The present paper examines the role of the built environment on pedestrian-vehicular crashes, pedestrians' risk perception, and pedestrians' unsafe activities at the urban signalized junctions in the context of a developing nation. A conceptual framework is established to recognize the possible associations between the built environment, risk exposures, pedestrian activity, risk perception, and pedestrian crashes. The proposed research work is demonstrated with reference to the metropolitan city of Kolkata, India. The Negative binomial models are developed to study the association between the built environment and police-reported crashes. Likewise, to examine the role of the built environment on pedestrian risk perception Ordered logit models are developed. The study outcome shows that an increase in average vehicular speed by 10 km per hour at a junction is expected to increase the chance of pedestrian fatalities by 50%. With an increase in minor road width by one unit, pedestrian fatality risk is likely to rise by 7%. The lack of a pedestrian signal head is expected to increase pedestrians' perceived risk by 1.2 times; whereas the absence of adequate sight distance is probable to increase pedestrians' perceived risk by 2.3 times. Subsequently, a set of beta regression models are developed to examine the impact of the built environment on pedestrians' unsafe activities. The outcomes confirm that 'pedestrian's usage of mobile phones while crossing' (distraction) increases the possibility of pedestrian signal violation behavior by 1.7 times. Inaccessible zebra crossing and on-street parking are likely to increase pedestrians' risky crossing behavior by 16% and by 14%, respectively.