Assessing pedestrian safety at urban signalized intersections across various land use types: insights from a mid-sized Indian city
Dipanjan Mukherjee
Abstract
Pedestrian fatalities and injuries have emerged as significant concerns in Indian cities, particularly in mid-sized urban areas where obtaining consistent and reliable crash data remains a major challenge. Addressing this gap, the present study proposes and demonstrates a novel approach to proactively evaluate pedestrian safety across varying land use patterns in an Indian mid-sized city. The study provides comprehensive insights into the safety dynamics by employing the Post-encroachment Time (PET) method to analyze pedestrian-vehicular conflicts and assess pedestrians' perceived risk. This study systematically analyzed 8,205 pedestrian-vehicular conflicts and the risk perceptions of 2,495 pedestrians through video recordings and on-site questionnaire surveys conducted at twelve signalized intersections in Patiala City, Punjab, India. These intersections were strategically selected to represent diverse land use types, including commercial areas, educational hubs, religious sites, and residential neighborhoods. Multiple linear regression models were developed to identify key factors influencing PET, incorporating variables such as land use types, built environment characteristics, traffic dynamics, conflicting vehicle types, pedestrian crossing behaviors, enforcement measures, and temporal variations of conflict. Additionally, ordered logit models were used to explore factors influencing pedestrians' perceived safety, including sociodemographic attributes, trip purposes, frequency of using a particular intersection, and knowledge of road safety and traffic regulations. The study findings indicate the average PET is substantially lower in religious areas (0.897 s) compared to educational hubs (2.443 s), with a perceived risk of 9.5% higher in religious locations. The likelihood of critical pedestrian-vehicle interactions increases by 30% during evening peak hours (7:00–8:00 pm), and rolling behavior among pedestrians elevates the probability of conflicts by 39.5%. Pedestrians with previous crash experiences report a 4.35% higher perceived risk. Perceived risk is also notably higher among older pedestrians (aged 50 and above), with an increase of approximately 11% compared to younger individuals.