WorldWideScience

Sample records for safety drivers pedestrians

  1. Pedestrian Safety in Road Traffic in Poland

    Science.gov (United States)

    Budzynski, Marcin; Jamroz, Kazimierz; Mackun, Tomasz

    2017-10-01

    Every third road accident in Poland involves a pedestrian as a participant or, most of the time, a casualty. Pedestrian accidents are usually the result of complex situations and the outcome of a number of factors related to driver and pedestrian behaviour and road infrastructure. Safety depends largely on how well the traffic condition is perceived and on visibility in traffic. The paper presents the results of analyses of methodologies for systematic studies of pedestrian behaviour and pedestrian-driver relations. The effects of the location of the site, type of cross-section and other selected parameters on pedestrian and driver behaviour are demonstrated. The analyses showed that pedestrians are most often put at risk by too long pedestrian crossings, vehicles going too fast around pedestrian crossings, lack of proper sight distance and poorly lit or unlit pedestrian crossings. The reason for such defective infrastructure is that planners, designers, contractors and maintenance services are not receiving any support from design, marking and maintenance regulations for pedestrian traffic. In addition, the Road Traffic Law is not restrictive enough when it comes to drivers’ obligations towards pedestrian safety. Polish design regulations allow long pedestrian crossings up to four lanes in one direction or three lanes in two directions irrespective of traffic control and speed limits. Pedestrian crossings should be kept at a maximum of three lanes. There is nothing in the design regulations about the required driver-pedestrian sight distance. Neither does the Road Traffic Law help engineers with that. It is legal to park vehicles within 10 m of a pedestrian crossing which does not guarantee the necessary sight distance. Drivers must be able to see a pedestrian waiting or stepping onto the crossing from a distance that will help them come to a stop safely. It is safer to follow the principle of providing adequate pedestrian sight distance. Recommendations for

  2. Young drivers' perception of adult and child pedestrians in potential street-crossing situations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ābele, Līva; Haustein, Sonja; Møller, Mette

    2018-04-03

    Despite overall improvements in road traffic safety, pedestrian accidents continue to be a serious public health problem. Due to lack of experience, limited cognitive and motoric skills, and smaller size, children have a higher injury risk as pedestrians than adults. To what extent drivers adjust their driving behaviour to children's higher vulnerability is largely unknown. To determine whether young male drivers' behaviour and scanning pattern differs when approaching a child and an adult pedestrian in a potential street-crossing situation, sixty-five young (18-24) male drivers' speed, lateral position and eye movements were recorded in a driving simulator. Results showed that fewer drivers responded by slowing down and that drivers had a higher driving speed when approaching a child pedestrian, although the time of the first fixation on both types of pedestrians was the same. However, drivers drove farther away from a child than an adult pedestrian. Additionally, fewer drivers who did not slow down fixated on the speedometer while approaching the child pedestrian. The results show that young drivers behave differently when approaching a child and an adult pedestrian, though not in a way that appropriately accounts for the limitations of a child pedestrian. A better understanding of how drivers respond to different types of pedestrians and why could contribute to the development of pedestrian detection and emergency braking systems. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Pedestrian-driver communication and decision strategies at marked crossings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sucha, Matus; Dostal, Daniel; Risser, Ralf

    2017-05-01

    ' needs to feel safe and comfortable, as well as ensuring their objective safety. Thus, improvements should include measures aimed at reducing the speed of approaching vehicles (e.g. humps, speed cushions, elevated crossings, early yield bars, and narrow lanes), as this would enhance yielding by motor vehicles. Other measures that specifically rely on the subjective perception of different situations by the parties involved include the education and training of drivers, the aim of which is to promote their understanding and appreciation of pedestrians' needs and motives. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Young drivers' perception of adult and child pedestrians in potential street-crossing situations

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Abele, Liva; Haustein, Sonja; Møller, Mette

    2018-01-01

    Despite overall improvements in road traffic safety, pedestrian accidents continue to be a serious public health problem. Due to lack of experience, limited cognitive and motoric skills, and smaller size, children have a higher injury risk as pedestrians than adults. To what extent drivers adjust...... that appropriately accounts for the limitations of a child pedestrian. A better understanding of how drivers respond to different types of pedestrians and why could contribute to the development of pedestrian detection and emergency braking systems....

  5. Powered two-wheeler drivers' risk of hitting a pedestrian in towns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clabaux, Nicolas; Fournier, Jean-Yves; Michel, Jean-Emmanuel

    2014-12-01

    The risk of collision between pedestrians and powered two-wheelers is poorly understood today. The objective of this research is to determine the risk for powered two-wheeler drivers of hitting and injuring a pedestrian per kilometer driven in towns and to compare this risk with that run by four-wheeled vehicle drivers. Using the bodily injury accidents recorded by the police on nine roads in the city of Marseille in 2011 and a campaign of observations of powered two-wheeler traffic, we estimated the risk per kilometer driven by powered two-wheeler drivers of hitting a pedestrian and compared it with the risk run by four-wheeled vehicle drivers. The results show that the risk for powered two-wheeler drivers of hitting and injuring a pedestrian is significantly higher than the risk run by four-wheeled vehicle drivers. On the nine roads studied, it is on average 3.33 times higher (95% CI: 1.63; 6.78). Taking four more years into account made it possible to consolidate these results and to tighten the confidence interval. There does indeed seem to be problems in the interactions between pedestrians and powered two-wheeler users in urban traffic. These interaction problems lead to a higher risk of hitting and injuring a pedestrian for powered two-wheeler drivers than for four-wheeled vehicle drivers. The analysis of the police reports suggests that part of this increased risk comes from filtering maneuvers by powered two-wheelers. Possible countermeasures deal with the urban street layout. Measures consisting in reducing the width and the number of traffic lanes to a strict minimum and installing medians or pedestrian islands could be an effective way for the prevention of urban accidents between pedestrians and powered two-wheelers. Copyright © 2014 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Safety effectiveness of pavement design treatment at intersections: Left turning vehicles and pedestrians on crosswalks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hasina Iasmin

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users as they are more exposed than other road users. Pedestrian safety at road intersections still remains the most vital and yet unsolved issue. One of the critical points in pedestrian safety is the occurrence of accidents between left-turning vehicle and pedestrians on crosswalks at signalized intersections. A crosswalk is a place designated for pedestrians and cyclists to cross vehicular roads safely. Drivers are expected to give priority to pedestrians or cyclists during interactions between them on the crosswalk. If a driver exhibits non-yielding behavior, the interaction will turn into a collision. This study examined the safety effect of three crosswalks designed with different materials such as red-colored material or brick pavement based on a safety performance study. The safety performance study considered left-turning driver's gap acceptance behavior and the severity of traffic conflict events between left-turning vehicles and pedestrians. The results of the study indicates that using brick pavement on a crosswalk increases the safety level of the crosswalk. Drivers at such crosswalks are more acquiescent to the priority rule.

  7. Brake reactions of distracted drivers to pedestrian Forward Collision Warning systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lubbe, Nils

    2017-06-01

    Forward Collision Warning (FCW) can be effective in directing driver attention towards a conflict and thereby aid in preventing or mitigating collisions. FCW systems aiming at pedestrian protection have been introduced onto the market, yet an assessment of their safety benefits depends on the accurate modeling of driver reactions when the system is activated. This study contributes by quantifying brake reaction time and brake behavior (deceleration levels and jerk) to compare the effectiveness of an audio-visual warning only, an added haptic brake pulse warning, and an added Head-Up Display in reducing the frequency of collisions with pedestrians. Further, this study provides a detailed data set suited for the design of assessment methods for car-to-pedestrian FCW systems. Brake response characteristics were measured for heavily distracted drivers who were subjected to a single FCW event in a high-fidelity driving simulator. The drivers maintained a self-regulated speed of 30km/h in an urban area, with gaze direction diverted from the forward roadway by a secondary task. Collision rates and brake reaction times differed significantly across FCW settings. Brake pulse warnings resulted in the lowest number of collisions and the shortest brake reaction times (mean 0.8s, SD 0.29s). Brake jerk and deceleration were independent of warning type. Ninety percent of drivers exceeded a maximum deceleration of 3.6m/s 2 and a jerk of 5.3m/s 3 . Brake pulse warning was the most effective FCW interface for preventing collisions. In addition, this study presents the data required for driver modeling for car-to-pedestrian FCW similar to Euro NCAP's 2015 car-to-car FCW assessment. Practical applications: Vehicle manufacturers should consider the introduction of brake pulse warnings to their FCW systems. Euro NCAP could introduce an assessment that quantifies the safety benefits of pedestrian FCW systems and thereby aid the proliferation of effective systems. Copyright © 2017

  8. Ranking the types of intersections for assessing the safety of pedestrians using TOPSIS method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Călin ŞERBU

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Every year, more than 1500 accidents with pedestrian occur in the intersections in Romania. The number of accidents involving pedestrians in roundabouts intersections type increased approximately three times in 2013 compared to 2009 in Romania. This alarming increase led to the need of assessing the safety of pedestrians in intersections with or without safety systems. The safety systems for pedestrians and drivers include: the road marking, the pedestrian crossings marking, signal intersections with road signs, traffic lights or pedestrian safety barriers. We propose to assess the types of intersections with TOPSIS method.

  9. The accuracy and timing of pedestrian warnings at intersections: the acceptance from drivers and their preferences

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Boer, Josine; Chaziris, Antonios; Vreeswijk, Jacob Dirk; Bie, Jing; van Arem, Bart; Abadi, A.; Bauer e.a., D.

    2010-01-01

    The safety of vulnerable road users at traffic intersections is critical. Driver assistance systems can improve safety but have to rely on accurate detection of hazardous situations. Given the complexity of pedestrian movement, detection of pedestrian presence and prediction of their behaviour are

  10. Distracted walking: Examining the extent to pedestrian safety problems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Judith Mwakalonge

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrians, much like drivers, have always been engaged in multi-tasking like using hand-held devices, listening to music, snacking, or reading while walking. The effects are similar to those experienced by distracted drivers. However, distracted walking has not received similar policies and effective interventions as distracted driving to improve pedestrian safety. This study reviewed the state-of-practice on policies, campaigns, available data, identified research needs, and opportunities pertaining to distracted walking. A comprehensive review of literature revealed that some of the agencies/organizations disseminate useful information about certain distracting activities that pedestrians should avoid while walking to improve their safety. Various walking safety rules/tips have been given, such as not wearing headphones or talking on a cell phone while crossing a street, keeping the volume down, hanging up the phone while walking, being aware of traffic, and avoiding distractions like walking with texting. The majority of the past observational-based and experimental-based studies reviewed in this study on distracted walking is in agreement that there is a positive correlation between distraction and unsafe walking behavior. However, limitations of the existing crash data suggest that distracted walking may not be a severe threat to the public health. Current pedestrian crash data provide insufficient information for researchers to examine the extent to which distracted walking causes and/or contributes to actual pedestrian safety problems.

  11. Active pedestrian safety by automatic braking and evasive steering

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keller, C.; Dang, T.; Fritz, H.; Joos, A.; Rabe, C.; Gavrila, D.M.

    2011-01-01

    Active safety systems hold great potential for reducing accident frequency and severity by warning the driver and/or exerting automatic vehicle control ahead of crashes. This paper presents a novel active pedestrian safety system that combines sensing, situation analysis, decision making, and

  12. Road users’ opinion about pedestrian safety in the emirate of Sharjah, UAE- survey results

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alhmoudi Mariam

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper is to investigate the pedestrian safety in Sharjah (UAE, and suggest recommendations to improve safety in the emirate. A survey data was collected from 570 participants in December, 2016, and included the following informations: measure the awareness of drivers and pedestrians, determine the behavior of road users, take general views from the road users, and measure the level of users` satisfaction. The results showed that characteristics of road users including (gender, age group, nationality, social status, education level and the income can affect their behavior at different levels and that may lead to pedestrian accidents. Also, most participants noticed that there are differences in the behavior of drivers and pedestrians based on their nationalities, and they indicated that pedestrian mistakes are main cause of this type of accidents. Moreover, the data showed that most drivers confirmed that they give more attention to pedestrians in mixed land used than other areas and they mentioned that “traffic signal + marked lines” is the clearest place for them to be attentive to pedestrians crossing the road. Overall, based on the results of this paper, there is an urgent need to re-evaluate the pedestrian facilities in the Emirate such as (Design, locations, and their availability as well as focusing more on the education and the law enforcement.

  13. Enhancing the Driver Awareness of Pedestrian using Augmented Reality Cues

    OpenAIRE

    Phan , Minh Tien; Thouvenin , Indira; Frémont , Vincent

    2016-01-01

    International audience; Pedestrian accident is a serious problem for the society. Pedestrian Collision Warning Systems (PCWS) are proposed to detect the presence of pedestrians and to warn the driver about the potential dangers. However, their interfaces associated with ambiguous alerts can distract drivers and create more dangers. On the other hand, Augmented Reality (AR) with Head-Up Display (HUD) interfaces have recently attracted the attention in the field of automotive research as they c...

  14. Analyzing fault in pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes in North Carolina.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ulfarsson, Gudmundur F; Kim, Sungyop; Booth, Kathleen M

    2010-11-01

    Crashes between pedestrians and motor vehicles are an important traffic safety concern. This paper explores the assignment of fault in such crashes, where observed factors are associated with pedestrian at fault, driver at fault, or both at fault. The analysis is based on police reported crash data for 1997 through 2000 in North Carolina, U.S.A. The results show that pedestrians are found at fault in 59% of the crashes, drivers in 32%, and both are found at fault in 9%. The results indicate drivers need to take greater notice of pedestrians when drivers are turning, merging, and backing up as these are some of the prime factors associated with the driver being found at fault in a crash. Pedestrians must apply greater caution when crossing streets, waiting to cross, and when walking along roads, as these are correlated with pedestrians being found at fault. The results suggest a need for campaigns focused on positively affecting pedestrian street-crossing behavior in combination with added jaywalking enforcement. The results also indicate that campaigns to increase the use of pedestrian visibility improvements at night can have a significant positive impact on traffic safety. Intoxication is a concern and the results show that it is not only driver intoxication that is affecting safety, but also pedestrian intoxication. The findings show in combination with other research in the field, that results from traffic safety studies are not necessarily transferable between distant geographic locations, and that location-specific safety research needs to take place. It is also important to further study the specific effects of the design of the pedestrian environment on safety, e.g. crosswalk spacing, signal timings, etc., which together may affect pedestrian safety and pedestrian behavior. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Situational Factors of Influencing Drivers to Give Precedence to Jaywalking Pedestrians at Signalized Crosswalk

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaobei Jiang

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available A large number of fatalities are caused by the vehicle-pedestrian accidents. Under a potential conflict between the vehicle and jaywalking pedestrian, giving precedence to the pedestrian will be a proper decision taken by the driver to avoid collision. Field traffic data has been collected by video recording and image processing at two signalized crosswalks. Vehicle speed performance in the single vehicle-pedestrian encounter and platoon vehicle-pedestrian encounter were analyzed for understanding the driver behavior in the conflict process. Binary logic model was proposed to estimate the drivers' giving precedence influenced by the situational factors and the model was validated to predict the drivers' choices accurately. The vehicle speed, pedestrian speed, pedestrian lateral distance and the vehicle longitudinal distance to the conflict point were proved to affect the drivers' choices in platoon driving. The research results would hopefully be helpful to the design of intelligent vehicles and pedestrian protection systems by the knowledge-based decision making process.

  16. Survey of pedestrian detection for advanced driver assistance systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerónimo, David; López, Antonio M; Sappa, Angel D; Graf, Thorsten

    2010-07-01

    Advanced driver assistance systems (ADASs), and particularly pedestrian protection systems (PPSs), have become an active research area aimed at improving traffic safety. The major challenge of PPSs is the development of reliable on-board pedestrian detection systems. Due to the varying appearance of pedestrians (e.g., different clothes, changing size, aspect ratio, and dynamic shape) and the unstructured environment, it is very difficult to cope with the demanded robustness of this kind of system. Two problems arising in this research area are the lack of public benchmarks and the difficulty in reproducing many of the proposed methods, which makes it difficult to compare the approaches. As a result, surveying the literature by enumerating the proposals one--after-another is not the most useful way to provide a comparative point of view. Accordingly, we present a more convenient strategy to survey the different approaches. We divide the problem of detecting pedestrians from images into different processing steps, each with attached responsibilities. Then, the different proposed methods are analyzed and classified with respect to each processing stage, favoring a comparative viewpoint. Finally, discussion of the important topics is presented, putting special emphasis on the future needs and challenges.

  17. Driver behavior in car-to-pedestrian incidents: An application of the Driving Reliability and Error Analysis Method (DREAM).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Habibovic, Azra; Tivesten, Emma; Uchida, Nobuyuki; Bärgman, Jonas; Ljung Aust, Mikael

    2013-01-01

    To develop relevant road safety countermeasures, it is necessary to first obtain an in-depth understanding of how and why safety-critical situations such as incidents, near-crashes, and crashes occur. Video-recordings from naturalistic driving studies provide detailed information on events and circumstances prior to such situations that is difficult to obtain from traditional crash investigations, at least when it comes to the observable driver behavior. This study analyzed causation in 90 video-recordings of car-to-pedestrian incidents captured by onboard cameras in a naturalistic driving study in Japan. The Driving Reliability and Error Analysis Method (DREAM) was modified and used to identify contributing factors and causation patterns in these incidents. Two main causation patterns were found. In intersections, drivers failed to recognize the presence of the conflict pedestrian due to visual obstructions and/or because their attention was allocated towards something other than the conflict pedestrian. In incidents away from intersections, this pattern reoccurred along with another pattern showing that pedestrians often behaved in unexpected ways. These patterns indicate that an interactive advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) able to redirect the driver's attention could have averted many of the intersection incidents, while autonomous systems may be needed away from intersections. Cooperative ADAS may be needed to address issues raised by visual obstructions. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Pedestrian Safety Treatments for Signalized Intersections : Training Course Development

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-11-01

    When drivers make left turns during a permissive turn phase, they must yield to pedestrians as well as oncoming through vehicles. Left-turning drivers sometimes overlook pedestrians in the crosswalk while watching the opposing intersection approach. ...

  19. Survey about pedestrian safety and attitudes toward automated traffic enforcement in Washington, D.C.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cicchino, Jessica B; Wells, Joann K; McCartt, Anne T

    2014-01-01

    Pedestrians represent more than one third of all traffic deaths in Washington, D.C. The District plans to expand its long-standing automated traffic enforcement program in 2013 from speed and red light cameras to cameras to enforce pedestrian right-of-way laws at crosswalks and stop sign laws. This study collected information on the opinions, behaviors, and knowledge of D.C. residents related to camera enforcement and pedestrian safety issues. A telephone survey of 801 adult D.C. residents was conducted in November 2012 with approximately equal numbers of respondents in each of D.C.'s eight wards. Quotas were used to ensure that the sample was representative of the demographic characteristics of adults in each ward. For analyses combining responses across the wards, data were weighted to correspond with the demographic characteristics of adults in the city. Most respondents believed that drivers speeding, running red lights, running stop signs, and not stopping for pedestrians are serious threats to their safety. Respondents strongly supported the speed and red light camera programs, with 76 percent of respondents favoring speed cameras and 87 percent favoring red light cameras. Support was more limited for the camera enforcement that was not yet in place at the time of the survey, with 50 percent of respondents favoring stop sign cameras and 47 percent of respondents favoring crosswalk cameras. Twenty-four percent of respondents had not driven a car in D.C. in the past month, and higher proportions of these nondrivers favored speed cameras (90%), stop sign cameras (67%), and crosswalk cameras (59%) than respondents who drove in D.C. in the past month. Respondents who supported camera enforcement cited safety as their main reason. More than 9 in 10 respondents knew that D.C. law requires drivers to stop for pedestrians crossing the street in marked crosswalks at intersections without traffic signals and midblock, but only 54 percent knew that drivers must stop for

  20. Optimism about safety and group-serving interpretations of safety among pedestrians and cyclists in relation to road use in general and under low light conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    King, M J; Wood, J M; Lacherez, P F; Marszalek, R P

    2012-01-01

    Drivers are known to be optimistic about their risk of crash involvement, believing that they are less likely to be involved in a crash than other drivers. However, little comparative research has been conducted among other road users. In addition, optimism about crash risk is conceptualised as applying only to an individual's assessment of his or her personal risk of crash involvement. The possibility that the self-serving nature of optimism about safety might be generalised to the group-level as a cyclist or a pedestrian, i.e., becoming group-serving rather than self-serving, has been overlooked in relation to road safety. This study analysed a subset of data collected as part of a larger research project on the visibility of pedestrians, cyclists and road workers, focusing on a set of questionnaire items administered to 406 pedestrians, 838 cyclists and 622 drivers. The items related to safety in various scenarios involving drivers, pedestrians and cyclists, allowing predictions to be derived about group differences in agreement with items based on the assumption that the results would exhibit group-serving bias. Analysis of the responses indicated that specific hypotheses about group-serving interpretations of safety and responsibility were supported in 22 of the 26 comparisons. When the nine comparisons relevant to low lighting conditions were considered separately, seven were found to be supported. The findings of the research have implications for public education and for the likely acceptance of messages which are inconsistent with current assumptions and expectations of pedestrians and cyclists. They also suggest that research into group-serving interpretations of safety, even for temporary roles rather than enduring groups, could be fruitful. Further, there is an implication that gains in safety can be made by better educating road users about the limitations of their visibility and the ramifications of this for their own road safety, particularly in low

  1. Is More Better? - Night Vision Enhancement System's Pedestrian Warning Modes and Older Drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Timothy; He, Yefei; Roe, Cheryl; Schnell, Thomas

    2010-01-01

    Pedestrian fatalities as a result of vehicle collisions are much more likely to happen at night than during day time. Poor visibility due to darkness is believed to be one of the causes for the higher vehicle collision rate at night. Existing studies have shown that night vision enhancement systems (NVES) may improve recognition distance, but may increase drivers' workload. The use of automatic warnings (AW) may help minimize workload, improve performance, and increase safety. In this study, we used a driving simulator to examine performance differences of a NVES with six different configurations of warning cues, including: visual, auditory, tactile, auditory and visual, tactile and visual, and no warning. Older drivers between the ages of 65 and 74 participated in the study. An analysis based on the distance to pedestrian threat at the onset of braking response revealed that tactile and auditory warnings performed the best, while visual warnings performed the worst. When tactile or auditory warnings were presented in combination with visual warning, their effectiveness decreased. This result demonstrated that, contrary to general sense regarding warning systems, multi-modal warnings involving visual cues degraded the effectiveness of NVES for older drivers.

  2. Pedestrian safety management using the risk-based approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Romanowska Aleksandra

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents a concept of a multi-level pedestrian safety management system. Three management levels are distinguished: strategic, tactical and operational. The basis for the proposed approach to pedestrian safety management is a risk-based method. In the approach the elements of behavioural and systemic theories were used, allowing for the development of a formalised and repeatable procedure integrating the phases of risk assessment and response to the hazards of road crashes involving pedestrians. Key to the method are tools supporting pedestrian safety management. According to the risk management approach, the tools can be divided into two groups: tools supporting risk assessment and tools supporting risk response. In the paper attention is paid to selected tools supporting risk assessment, with particular emphasis on the methods for estimating forecasted pedestrian safety measures (at strategic, national and regional level and identification of particularly dangerous locations in terms of pedestrian safety at tactical (regional and local and operational level. The proposed pedestrian safety management methods and tools can support road administration in making rational decisions in terms of road safety, safety of road infrastructure, crash elimination measures or reducing the consequences suffered by road users (particularly pedestrians as a result of road crashes.

  3. Evaluating Countermeasures to Improve Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    2018-11-01

    Pedestrian crashes have reached an alarming level in the U.S. Different factors could contribute to the occurrence of these crashes at an intersection, including driver errors, the type of maneuver, and pedestrian behaviors. All these factors highlig...

  4. Trajectory Analysis and Prediction for Improved Pedestrian Safety

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Møgelmose, Andreas; Trivedi, Mohan M.; Moeslund, Thomas B.

    2015-01-01

    This paper presents a monocular and purely vision based pedestrian trajectory tracking and prediction framework with integrated map-based hazard inference. In Advanced Driver Assistance systems research, a lot of effort has been put into pedestrian detection over the last decade, and several pede...

  5. Far-infrared pedestrian detection for advanced driver assistance systems using scene context

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Guohua; Liu, Qiong; Wu, Qingyao

    2016-04-01

    Pedestrian detection is one of the most critical but challenging components in advanced driver assistance systems. Far-infrared (FIR) images are well-suited for pedestrian detection even in a dark environment. However, most current detection approaches just focus on pedestrian patterns themselves, where robust and real-time detection cannot be well achieved. We propose a fast FIR pedestrian detection approach, called MAP-HOGLBP-T, to explicitly exploit the scene context for the driver assistance system. In MAP-HOGLBP-T, three algorithms are developed to exploit the scene contextual information from roads, vehicles, and background objects of high homogeneity, and we employ the Bayesian approach to build a classifier learner which respects the scene contextual information. We also develop a multiframe approval scheme to enhance the detection performance based on spatiotemporal continuity of pedestrians. Our empirical study on real-world datasets has demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method. The performance is shown to be better than that of state-of-the-art low-level feature-based approaches.

  6. Driver perceptions of the safety implications of quiet electric vehicles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cocron, Peter; Krems, Josef F

    2013-09-01

    Previous research on the safety implications of quiet electric vehicles (EVs) has mostly focused on pedestrians' acoustic perception of EVs, and suggests that EVs are more difficult for pedestrians to hear and, therefore, compromise traffic safety. The two German field studies presented here examine the experiences of 70 drivers with low noise emissions of EVs and the drivers' long-term evaluation of the issue. Participants were surveyed via interviews and questionnaires before driving an EV for the first time, after 3 months of driving, and in the first study, again after 6 months. Based on participants' reports, a catalogue of safety-relevant incidents was composed in Study 1. The catalogue revealed that low noise-related critical incidents only rarely occur, and mostly take place in low-speed environments. The degree of hazard related to these incidents was rated as low to medium. In Study 1, driver concern for vulnerable road users as a result of low noise diminished with increasing driving experience, while perceived comfort due to this feature increased. These results were replicated in Study 2. In the second study, it was additionally examined, if drivers adjust their perceived risk of harming other road users over time. Results show that the affective assessment of risk also decreased with increased driving experience. Based on individual experience, drivers adjust their evaluation of noise-related hazards, suggesting that dangers associated with low noise emissions might be less significant than previously expected. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. SenSafe: A Smartphone-Based Traffic Safety Framework by Sensing Vehicle and Pedestrian Behaviors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhenyu Liu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Traffic accident involving vehicles is one of the most serious problems in the transportation system nowadays. How to detect dangerous steering and then alarm drivers in real time is a problem. What is more, walking while using smartphones makes pedestrian more susceptible to various risks. Although dedicated short range communication (DSRC provides the way for safety communications, most of vehicles have not been deployed with DSRC components. Even worse, DSRC is not supported by the smartphones for vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P communication. In this paper, a smartphone-based framework named SenSafe is developed to improve the traffic safety. SenSafe is a framework which only utilizes the smartphone to sense the surrounding events and provides alerts to drivers. Smartphone-based driving behaviors detection mechanism is developed inside the framework to discover various steering behaviors. Besides, the Wi-Fi association and authentication overhead is reduced to broadcast the compressed sensing data using the Wi-Fi beacon to inform the drivers of the surroundings. Furthermore, a collision estimation algorithm is designed to issue appropriate warnings. Finally, an Android-based implementation of SenSafe framework has been achieved to demonstrate the application reliability in real environments.

  8. Effects of Pedestrian Prompts on Motorist Yielding at Crosswalks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crowley-Koch, Brian J.; Van Houten, Ron; Lim, Eunyoung

    2011-01-01

    Pedestrian safety is a serious concern at busy intersections and pedestrian campuses across the nation. Although crosswalks and signs inform pedestrians where to cross, there is no standard protocol for pedestrians to signal drivers that they wish to use the crosswalks, except to stand in or at the crosswalk. We examined the effects of two…

  9. Situations of car-to-pedestrian contact.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matsui, Yasuhiro; Hitosugi, Masahito; Takahashi, Kunio; Doi, Tsutomu

    2013-01-01

    To reduce the severity of injuries and the number of pedestrian deaths in traffic accidents, active safety devices providing pedestrian detection are considered effective countermeasures. The features of car-to-pedestrian collisions need to be known in detail to develop such safety devices. Because information on real-world accidents is limited, this study investigated near-miss situations captured by drive recorders installed in passenger cars. We showed similarities of the contact situation between near-miss incidents and real-world fatal pedestrian accidents in Japan. We analyzed the near-miss incident data via video capturing pedestrians crossing the road in front of forward-moving cars. Using a video frame captured by a drive recorder, the time to collision (TTC) was calculated from the car velocity and the distance between the car and pedestrian at the moment that the pedestrian initially appeared. The average TTC in the cases where pedestrians were not using a pedestrian crossing was shorter than that in the cases where pedestrians were using a pedestrian crossing. The average TTC in the cases where pedestrians emerged from behind obstructions was shorter than that in the cases where drivers had unobstructed views of the pedestrians. We propose that the specifications of the safety device for pedestrian detection and automatic braking should reflect the severe approach situation for a pedestrian and car including the TTC observed for near-miss incidents.

  10. Evaluation of pedestrian safety at intersections: A theoretical framework based on pedestrian-vehicle interaction patterns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ni, Ying; Wang, Menglong; Sun, Jian; Li, Keping

    2016-11-01

    Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users, and pedestrian safety has become a major research focus in recent years. Regarding the quality and quantity issues with collision data, conflict analysis using surrogate safety measures has become a useful method to study pedestrian safety. However, given the inequality between pedestrians and vehicles in encounters and the multiple interactions between pedestrians and vehicles, it is insufficient to simply use the same indicator(s) or the same way to aggregate indicators for all conditions. In addition, behavioral factors cannot be neglected. To better use information extracted from trajectories for safety evaluation and pay more attention on effects of behavioral factors, this paper develops a more sophisticated framework for pedestrian conflict analysis that takes pedestrian-vehicle interactions into consideration. A concept of three interaction patterns has been proposed for the first time, namely "hard interaction," "no interaction," and "soft-interaction." Interactions have been categorized under one of these patterns by analyzing profiles of speed and conflict indicators during the whole interactive processes. In this paper, a support vector machine (SVM) approach has been adopted to classify severity levels for a dataset including 1144 events extracted from three intersections in Shanghai, China, followed by an analysis of variable importance. The results revealed that different conflict indicators have different contributions to indicating the severity level under various interaction patterns. Therefore, it is recommended either to use specific conflict indicators or to use weighted indicator aggregation for each interaction pattern when evaluating pedestrian safety. The implementation has been carried out at the fourth crosswalk, and the results indicate that the proposed method can achieve a higher accuracy and better robustness than conventional methods. Furthermore, the method is helpful for better

  11. Investigating the risk factors associated with pedestrian injury severity in Illinois.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pour-Rouholamin, Mahdi; Zhou, Huaguo

    2016-06-01

    Pedestrians are known as the most vulnerable road users, which means their needs and safety require specific attention in strategic plans. Given the fact that pedestrians are more prone to higher injury severity levels compared to other road users, this study aims to investigate the risk factors associated with various levels of injury severity that pedestrians experience in Illinois. Ordered-response models are used to analyze single-vehicle, single-pedestrian crash data from 2010 to 2013 in Illinois. As a measure of net change in the effect of significant variables, average direct pseudo-elasticities are calculated that can be further used to prioritize safety countermeasures. A model comparison using AIC and BIC is also provided to compare the performance of the studied ordered-response models. The results recognized many variables associated with severe injuries: older pedestrians (more than 65years old), pedestrians not wearing contrasting clothing, adult drivers (16-24), drunk drivers, time of day (20:00 to 05:00), divided highways, multilane highways, darkness, and heavy vehicles. On the other hand, crossing the street at crosswalks, older drivers (more than 65years old), urban areas, and presence of traffic control devices (signal and sign) are associated with decreased probability of severe injuries. The comparison between three proposed ordered-response models shows that the partial proportional odds (PPO) model outperforms the conventional ordered (proportional odds-PO) model and generalized ordered logit model (GOLM). Based on the findings, stricter rules to address DUI driving is suggested. Educational programs need to focus on older pedestrians given the increasing number of older people in Illinois in the upcoming years. Pedestrians should be educated to use pedestrian crosswalks and contrasting clothing at night. In terms of engineering countermeasures, installation of crosswalks where pedestrian activity is high seems a promising practice

  12. Is More Better? — Night Vision Enhancement System’s Pedestrian Warning Modes and Older Drivers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Timothy; He, Yefei; Roe, Cheryl; Schnell, Thomas

    2010-01-01

    Pedestrian fatalities as a result of vehicle collisions are much more likely to happen at night than during day time. Poor visibility due to darkness is believed to be one of the causes for the higher vehicle collision rate at night. Existing studies have shown that night vision enhancement systems (NVES) may improve recognition distance, but may increase drivers’ workload. The use of automatic warnings (AW) may help minimize workload, improve performance, and increase safety. In this study, we used a driving simulator to examine performance differences of a NVES with six different configurations of warning cues, including: visual, auditory, tactile, auditory and visual, tactile and visual, and no warning. Older drivers between the ages of 65 and 74 participated in the study. An analysis based on the distance to pedestrian threat at the onset of braking response revealed that tactile and auditory warnings performed the best, while visual warnings performed the worst. When tactile or auditory warnings were presented in combination with visual warning, their effectiveness decreased. This result demonstrated that, contrary to general sense regarding warning systems, multi-modal warnings involving visual cues degraded the effectiveness of NVES for older drivers. PMID:21050616

  13. On the hazard of quiet vehicles to pedestrians and drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wogalter, Michael S; Lim, Raymond W; Nyeste, Patrick G

    2014-09-01

    The need to produce more efficient and less polluting vehicles has encouraged mass production of alternative energy vehicles, such as hybrid and electric cars. Many of these vehicles are capable of very quiet operation. While reducing noise pollution is desirable, quieter vehicles could negatively affect pedestrian safety because of reduced sound cues compared to louder internal combustion engines. Three studies were performed to investigate people's concern about this issue. In Study 1, a questionnaire completed by 378 people showed substantial positive interest in quiet hybrid and electric cars. However, they also indicated concern about the reduced auditory cues of quiet vehicles. In Study 2, 316 participants rated 14 sounds that could be potentially added to quiet alternative-energy vehicles. The data showed that participants did not want annoying sounds, but preferred adding "engine" and "hum" sounds relative to other types of sounds. In Study 3, 24 persons heard and rated 18 actual sounds within 6 categories that were added to a video of a hybrid vehicle driving by. The sounds most preferred were "engine" followed by "white noise" and "hum". Implications for adding sounds to facilitate pedestrians' detection of moving vehicles and for aiding drivers' awareness of speed are discussed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

  14. Expanding pedestrian injury risk to the body region level: how to model passive safety systems in pedestrian injury risk functions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niebuhr, Tobias; Junge, Mirko; Achmus, Stefanie

    2015-01-01

    decomposable into the 3 body regions and so are the risk functions as body region-specific risk functions. The risk functions for each body region are stated explicitly for different injury severity levels and compared to the real-world accident data. The body region-specific risk functions can then be used to model the effect of improved passive safety systems. These modified body region-specific injury risk functions are aggregated to a new pedestrian injury risk function. Passive safety systems can therefore be modeled in injury risk functions for the first time. A short example on how the results can be used for assessing the effectiveness of new driver assistance systems concludes the article.

  15. Traffic signal phasing at intersections to improve safety for alcohol-affected pedestrians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lenné, Michael G; Corben, Bruce F; Stephan, Karen

    2007-07-01

    Alcohol-affected pedestrians are among the highest-risk groups involved in pedestrian casualty crashes. This paper investigates the opportunities to use a modified form of traffic signal operation during high-risk periods and at high-risk locations to reduce alcohol-affected pedestrian crashes and the severity of injuries that might otherwise occur. The 'Dwell-on-Red' treatment involves displaying a red traffic signal to all vehicle directions during periods when no vehicular traffic is detected, so that drivers approach high-risk intersections at a lower speed than if a green signal were displayed. Vehicle speed data were collected before and after treatment activation at both a control and treatment site. Speed data were collected both 30 m prior to and at the intersection stop line. The treatment was associated with a reduction in mean vehicle speeds of 3.9 kph (9%) and 11.0 kph (28%) at 30 m and stop line collection points, respectively, and substantial reductions in the proportion of vehicles travelling at threatening speeds with regard to the severity of pedestrian injury. Other important road safety concerns may also benefit from this form of traffic signal modification, and it is recommended that other areas of application be explored, including the other severe trauma categories typically concentrated around signalised intersections.

  16. Macro-level safety analysis of pedestrian crashes in Shanghai, China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Xuesong; Yang, Junguang; Lee, Chris; Ji, Zhuoran; You, Shikai

    2016-11-01

    Pedestrian safety has become one of the most important issues in the field of traffic safety. This study aims at investigating the association between pedestrian crash frequency and various predictor variables including roadway, socio-economic, and land-use features. The relationships were modeled using the data from 263 Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs) within the urban area of Shanghai - the largest city in China. Since spatial correlation exists among the zonal-level data, Bayesian Conditional Autoregressive (CAR) models with seven different spatial weight features (i.e. (a) 0-1 first order, adjacency-based, (b) common boundary-length-based, (c) geometric centroid-distance-based, (d) crash-weighted centroid-distance-based, (e) land use type, adjacency-based, (f) land use intensity, adjacency-based, and (g) geometric centroid-distance-order) were developed to characterize the spatial correlations among TAZs. Model results indicated that the geometric centroid-distance-order spatial weight feature, which was introduced in macro-level safety analysis for the first time, outperformed all the other spatial weight features. Population was used as the surrogate for pedestrian exposure, and had a positive effect on pedestrian crashes. Other significant factors included length of major arterials, length of minor arterials, road density, average intersection spacing, percentage of 3-legged intersections, and area of TAZ. Pedestrian crashes were higher in TAZs with medium land use intensity than in TAZs with low and high land use intensity. Thus, higher priority should be given to TAZs with medium land use intensity to improve pedestrian safety. Overall, these findings can help transportation planners and managers understand the characteristics of pedestrian crashes and improve pedestrian safety. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Virtual reality by mobile smartphone: improving child pedestrian safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwebel, David C; Severson, Joan; He, Yefei; McClure, Leslie A

    2017-10-01

    Pedestrian injuries are a leading cause of paediatric injury. Effective, practical and cost-efficient behavioural interventions to teach young children street crossing skills are needed. They must be empirically supported and theoretically based. Virtual reality (VR) offers promise to fill this need and teach child pedestrian safety skills for several reasons, including: (A) repeated unsupervised practice without risk of injury, (B) automated feedback on crossing success or failure, (C) tailoring to child skill levels: (D) appealing and fun training environment, and (E) most recently given technological advances, potential for broad dissemination using mobile smartphone technology. Extending previous work, we will evaluate delivery of an immersive pedestrian VR using mobile smartphones and the Google Cardboard platform, technology enabling standard smartphones to function as immersive VR delivery systems. We will overcome limitations of previous research suggesting children learnt some pedestrian skills after six VR training sessions but did not master adult-level pedestrian skills by implementing a randomised non-inferiority trial with two equal-sized groups of children ages 7-8 years (total N=498). All children will complete baseline, postintervention and 6-month follow-up assessments of pedestrian safety and up to 25 30-min pedestrian safety training trials until they reach adult levels of functioning. Half the children will be randomly assigned to train in Google Cardboard and the other half in a semi-immersive kiosk VR. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) models will assess primary outcomes. If results are as hypothesised, mobile smartphones offer substantial potential to overcome barriers of dissemination and implementation and deliver pedestrian safety training to children worldwide. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

  18. Validity of instruments to assess students' travel and pedestrian safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Baranowski Tom

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Safe Routes to School (SRTS programs are designed to make walking and bicycling to school safe and accessible for children. Despite their growing popularity, few validated measures exist for assessing important outcomes such as type of student transport or pedestrian safety behaviors. This research validated the SRTS school travel survey and a pedestrian safety behavior checklist. Methods Fourth grade students completed a brief written survey on how they got to school that day with set responses. Test-retest reliability was obtained 3-4 hours apart. Convergent validity of the SRTS travel survey was assessed by comparison to parents' report. For the measure of pedestrian safety behavior, 10 research assistants observed 29 students at a school intersection for completion of 8 selected pedestrian safety behaviors. Reliability was determined in two ways: correlations between the research assistants' ratings to that of the Principal Investigator (PI and intraclass correlations (ICC across research assistant ratings. Results The SRTS travel survey had high test-retest reliability (κ = 0.97, n = 96, p Conclusions These validated instruments can be used to assess SRTS programs. The pedestrian safety behavior checklist may benefit from further formative work.

  19. Quantitative analysis of pedestrian safety at uncontrolled multi-lane mid-block crosswalks in China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Cunbao; Zhou, Bin; Chen, Guojun; Chen, Feng

    2017-11-01

    A lot of pedestrian-vehicle crashes at mid-block crosswalks severely threaten pedestrian's safety around the world. The situations are even worse in China due to low yielding rate of vehicles at crosswalks. In order to quantitatively analyze pedestrian's safety at multi-lane mid-block crosswalks, the number of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts was utilized to evaluate pedestrian's accident risk. Five mid-block crosswalks (Wuhan, China) were videoed to collect data of traffic situation and pedestrian-vehicle conflicts, and the quantity and spatial distribution of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts at multi-lane mid-block crosswalk were analyzed according to lane-based post-encroachment time(LPET). Statistical results indicate that conflicts are mainly concentrated in lane3 and lane6. Percentage of conflict of each lane numbered from 1 to 6 respectively are 4.1%, 13.1%, 19.8%, 8.4%, 19.0%, 28.1%. Conflict rate under different crossing strategies are also counted. Moreover, an order probit (OP) model of pedestrian-vehicle conflict analysis (PVCA) was built to find out the contributions corresponding to those factors (such as traffic volume, vehicle speed, pedestrian crossing behavior, pedestrian refuge, etc.) to pedestrian-vehicle conflicts. The results show that: pedestrian refuge have positive effects on pedestrian safety; on the other hand, high vehicle speed, high traffic volume, rolling gap crossing pattern, and larger pedestrian platoon have negative effects on pedestrian safety. Based on our field observation and PVCA model, the number of conflicts will rise by 2% while the traffic volume increases 200 pcu/h; similarly, if the vehicle speed increases 5km/h, the number of conflicts will rise by 12% accordingly. The research results could be used to evaluate pedestrian safety at multi-lane mid-block crosswalks, and useful to improve pedestrian safety by means of pedestrian safety education, pedestrian refuge setting, vehicle speed limiting, and so on. Copyright © 2017

  20. Aging driver and pedestrian safety : parking lot hazards study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-06-20

    In 2009, Florida reported the highest rate of : pedestrian fatalities in the nation. At 2.51 : deaths per 100,000 residents, Floridas rate was : nearly twice the national average. These deaths : occurred in all age groups, but compared to : other ...

  1. Validity of instruments to assess students' travel and pedestrian safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mendoza, Jason A; Watson, Kathy; Baranowski, Tom; Nicklas, Theresa A; Uscanga, Doris K; Hanfling, Marcus J

    2010-05-18

    Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs are designed to make walking and bicycling to school safe and accessible for children. Despite their growing popularity, few validated measures exist for assessing important outcomes such as type of student transport or pedestrian safety behaviors. This research validated the SRTS school travel survey and a pedestrian safety behavior checklist. Fourth grade students completed a brief written survey on how they got to school that day with set responses. Test-retest reliability was obtained 3-4 hours apart. Convergent validity of the SRTS travel survey was assessed by comparison to parents' report. For the measure of pedestrian safety behavior, 10 research assistants observed 29 students at a school intersection for completion of 8 selected pedestrian safety behaviors. Reliability was determined in two ways: correlations between the research assistants' ratings to that of the Principal Investigator (PI) and intraclass correlations (ICC) across research assistant ratings. The SRTS travel survey had high test-retest reliability (kappa = 0.97, n = 96, p < 0.001) and convergent validity (kappa = 0.87, n = 81, p < 0.001). The pedestrian safety behavior checklist had moderate reliability across research assistants' ratings (ICC = 0.48) and moderate correlation with the PI (r = 0.55, p = < 0.01). When two raters simultaneously used the instrument, the ICC increased to 0.65. Overall percent agreement (91%), sensitivity (85%) and specificity (83%) were acceptable. These validated instruments can be used to assess SRTS programs. The pedestrian safety behavior checklist may benefit from further formative work.

  2. Training Children in Pedestrian Safety: Distinguishing Gains in Knowledge from Gains in Safe Behavior

    OpenAIRE

    Schwebel, David C.; McClure, Leslie A.

    2014-01-01

    Pedestrian injuries contribute greatly to child morbidity and mortality. Recent evidence suggests that training within virtual pedestrian environments may improve children’s street crossing skills, but may not convey knowledge about safety in street environments. We hypothesized that (a) children will gain pedestrian safety knowledge via videos/software/internet websites, but not when trained by virtual pedestrian environment or other strategies; (b) pedestrian safety knowledge will be associ...

  3. Application of demographic analysis to pedestrian safety : final report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-04-01

    In recent years, many departments of transportation in the US have invested additional resources to enhance : pedestrian safety. However, there is still a need to effectively and systematically address the pedestrian experience : in low-income areas....

  4. Real-time pedestrian detection in a Truck's blind spot camera

    OpenAIRE

    Van Beeck, Kristof; Goedemé, Toon

    2014-01-01

    In this paper we present a multi-pedestrian detection and tracking framework targeting a specific application: detecting vulnerable road users in a truck's blind spot zone. Research indicates that existing non-vision based safety solutions are not able to handle this problem completely. Therefore we aim to develop an active safety system which warns the truck driver if pedestrians are present in the truck's blind spot zone. Our system solely uses the vision input from the truck's blind spot c...

  5. Pedestrian Movement Direction Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Networks

    OpenAIRE

    Dominguez-Sanchez, Alex; Cazorla, Miguel; Orts-Escolano, Sergio

    2017-01-01

    Pedestrian movement direction recognition is an important factor in autonomous driver assistance and security surveillance systems. Pedestrians are the most crucial and fragile moving objects in streets, roads, and events, where thousands of people may gather on a regular basis. People flow analysis on zebra crossings and in shopping centers or events such as demonstrations are a key element to improve safety and to enable autonomous cars to drive in real life environments. This paper focuses...

  6. Aging driver and pedestrian safety : parking lot hazards study [summary].

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-01

    In 2009, Florida reported the highest rate of pedestrian fatalities in the nation. At 2.51 deaths per 100,000 residents, Floridas rate was nearly twice the national average. These deaths occurred in all age groups, but compared to other age groups...

  7. Evaluating the impact of connectivity, continuity, and topography of sidewalk network on pedestrian safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osama, Ahmed; Sayed, Tarek

    2017-10-01

    With the increasing demand for sustainability, walking is being encouraged as one of the main active modes of transportation. However, pedestrians are vulnerable to severe injuries when involved in crashes which can discourage road users from walking. Therefore, studying factors that affect the safety of pedestrians is important. This paper investigates the relationship between pedestrian-motorist crashes and various sidewalk network indicators in the city of Vancouver. The goal is to assess the impact of network connectivity, directness, and topography on pedestrian safety using macro-level collision prediction models. The models were developed using generalized linear regression and full Bayesian techniques. Both walking trips and vehicle kilometers travelled were used as the main traffic exposure variables in the models. The safety models supported the safety in numbers hypothesis showing a non-linear positive association between pedestrian-motorist crashes and the increase in walking trips and vehicle traffic. The model results also suggested that higher continuity, linearity, coverage, and slope of sidewalk networks were associated with lower crash occurrence. However, network connectivity was associated with higher crash occurrence. The spatial effects were accounted for in the full Bayes models and were found significant. The models provide insights about the factors that influence pedestrian safety and the spatial variability of pedestrian crashes within a city, which can be useful for the planning of pedestrian networks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Creating pedestrian crash scenarios in a driving simulator environment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chrysler, Susan T; Ahmad, Omar; Schwarz, Chris W

    2015-01-01

    In 2012 in the United States, pedestrian injuries accounted for 3.3% of all traffic injuries but, disproportionately, pedestrian fatalities accounted for roughly 14% of traffic-related deaths (NHTSA 2014 ). In many other countries, pedestrians make up more than 50% of those injured and killed in crashes. This research project examined driver response to crash-imminent situations involving pedestrians in a high-fidelity, full-motion driving simulator. This article presents a scenario development method and discusses experimental design and control issues in conducting pedestrian crash research in a simulation environment. Driving simulators offer a safe environment in which to test driver response and offer the advantage of having virtual pedestrian models that move realistically, unlike test track studies, which by nature must use pedestrian dummies on some moving track. An analysis of pedestrian crash trajectories, speeds, roadside features, and pedestrian behavior was used to create 18 unique crash scenarios representative of the most frequent and most costly crash types. For the study reported here, we only considered scenarios where the car is traveling straight because these represent the majority of fatalities. We manipulated driver expectation of a pedestrian both by presenting intersection and mid-block crossing as well as by using features in the scene to direct the driver's visual attention toward or away from the crossing pedestrian. Three visual environments for the scenarios were used to provide a variety of roadside environments and speed: a 20-30 mph residential area, a 55 mph rural undivided highway, and a 40 mph urban area. Many variables of crash situations were considered in selecting and developing the scenarios, including vehicle and pedestrian movements; roadway and roadside features; environmental conditions; and characteristics of the pedestrian, driver, and vehicle. The driving simulator scenarios were subjected to iterative testing to

  9. Driver behavior analysis for right-turn drivers at signalized intersections using SHRP 2 naturalistic driving study data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Jianqing; Xu, Hao

    2017-12-01

    Understanding driver behavior is important for traffic safety and operation, especially at intersections where different traffic movements conflict. While most driver-behavior studies are based on simulation, this paper documents the analysis of driver-behavior at signalized intersections with the SHRP 2 Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) data. This study analyzes the different influencing factors on the operation (speed control) and observation of right-turn drivers. A total of 300 NDS trips at six signalized intersections were used, including the NDS time-series sensor data, the forward videos and driver face videos. Different factors of drivers, vehicles, roads and environments were studied for their influence on driver behavior. An influencing index function was developed and the index was calculated for each influencing factor to quantitatively describe its influencing level. The influencing index was applied to prioritize the factors, which facilitates development and selection of safety countermeasures to improve intersection safety. Drivers' speed control was analyzed under different conditions with consideration of the prioritized influencing factors. Vehicle type, traffic signal status, conflicting traffic, conflicting pedestrian and driver age group were identified as the five major influencing factors on driver observation. This research revealed that drivers have high acceleration and low observation frequency under Right-Turn-On-Red (RTOR), which constituted potential danger for other roadway users, especially for pedestrians. As speed has a direct influence on crash rates and severities, the revealed speed patterns of the different situations also benefit selection of safety countermeasures at signalized intersections. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  10. Study design and analysis of automobile bumper for pedestrian safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kulkarni, Akash; Vora, Rushabh; Ravi, K.

    2017-11-01

    This paper aims to design and analyse the bumper beam structure, in order to ensure the protection of the pedestrians along with the occupants inside the vehicle. The concern shown towards the pedestrian safety is because, each year about 2,70,000 pedestrians are killed in road accidents that accounts to 22% of the total deaths. From the literature review, it was inferred that the mounting position of bumper and material selection play a crucial role in maximising the pedestrian safety. Hence in this paper, the effects of bumper mounting position and the bumper beam material have been studied, with reference to an explicit dynamic collision involving with a dummy human lower leg set-up. The acceptance of a particular mounting position/material was based on the fact that the maximum stress and deformation induced were less than the yield limits of the human leg form structure (representing the skin, femur and tibia).

  11. Fast and Accurate Pedestrian Detection in a Truck’s Blind Spot Camera

    OpenAIRE

    Van Beeck, Kristof; Goedemé, Toon

    2015-01-01

    We propose a multi-pedestrian detection and tracking framework targeting a specific application: detecting vulnerable road users in a truck’s blind spot zone. Existing safety solutions are not able to handle this problem completely. Therefore we aim to develop an active safety system which warns the truck driver if pedestrians are present in the truck’s blind spot zone, using solely the vision input from the truck’s blind spot camera. This is not a trivial task, since—aside from the large dis...

  12. Some aspects of the safety of elderly pedestrians and cyclists.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hagenzieker, M.P.

    1996-01-01

    In this paper some aspects of the safety of elderly pedestrians and cyclists will be addressed. First, fatality data concerning older pedestrians and cyclists will be presented for a number of countries. Then, attention will be paid to fatality rates per 100,000 inhabitants, and the risks of elderly

  13. Pedestrian safety action plan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-06-01

    In 2005, Arizona ranked 5th among states in pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 residents, with 164 : pedestrian fatalities on Arizonas roadwaysa nearly 30 percent increase from 2003 levels. To reduce : the number of pedestrian crashes in Arizona...

  14. Systematic review and meta-analysis of behavioral interventions to improve child pedestrian safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwebel, David C; Barton, Benjamin K; Shen, Jiabin; Wells, Hayley L; Bogar, Ashley; Heath, Gretchen; McCullough, David

    2014-09-01

    Pedestrian injuries represent a pediatric public health challenge. This systematic review/meta-analysis evaluated behavioral interventions to teach children pedestrian safety. Multiple strategies derived eligible manuscripts (published before April 1, 2013, randomized design, evaluated behavioral child pedestrian safety interventions). Screening 1,951 abstracts yielded 125 full-text retrievals. 25 were retained for data extraction, and 6 were later omitted due to insufficient data. In all, 19 articles reporting 25 studies were included. Risk of bias and quality of evidence were assessed. Behavioral interventions generally improve children's pedestrian safety, both immediately after training and at follow-up several months later. Quality of the evidence was low to moderate. Available evidence suggested interventions targeting dash-out prevention, crossing at parked cars, and selecting safe routes across intersections were effective. Individualized/small-group training for children was the most effective training strategy based on available evidence. Behaviorally based interventions improve children's pedestrian safety. Efforts should continue to develop creative, cost-efficient, and effective interventions. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  15. Investigating and improving pedestrian safety in an urban environment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pollack, Keshia M; Gielen, Andrea C; Mohd Ismail, Mohd Nasir; Mitzner, Molly; Wu, Michael; Links, Jonathan M

    2014-12-01

    Prompted by a series of fatal and nonfatal pedestrian-vehicle collisions, university leadership from one urban institution collaborated with its academic injury research center to investigate traffic-related hazards facing pedestrians. This descriptive epidemiologic study used multiple data collection strategies to determine the burden of pedestrian injury in the target area. Data were collected in 2011 through a review of university crash reports from campus police; a systematic environmental audit and direct observations using a validated instrument and trained raters; and focus groups with faculty, students, and staff. Study findings were synthesized and evidence-informed recommendations were developed and disseminated to university leadership. Crash reports provided some indication of the risks on the streets adjacent to the campus. The environmental audit identified a lack of signage posting the speed limit, faded crosswalks, issues with traffic light and walk sign synchronization, and limited formal pedestrian crossings, which led to jaywalking. Focus groups participants described dangerous locations and times, signal controls and signage, enforcement of traffic laws, use of cell phones and iPods, and awareness of pedestrian safety. Recommendations to improve pedestrian safety were developed in accordance with the three E's of injury prevention (education, enforcement, and engineering), and along with plans for implementation and evaluation, were presented to university leadership. These results underscore the importance of using multiple methods to understand fully the problem, developing pragmatic recommendations that align with the three E's of injury prevention, and collaborating with leadership who have the authority to implement recommended injury countermeasures. These lessons are relevant for the many colleges and universities in urban settings where a majority of travel to offices, classrooms, and surrounding amenities are by foot.

  16. Child pedestrian safety knowledge, behaviour and road injury in Cape Town, South Africa.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koekemoer, Karin; Van Gesselleen, Megan; Van Niekerk, Ashley; Govender, Rajen; Van As, Arjan Bastiaan

    2017-02-01

    Pedestrian injuries are a leading cause of death among South African children, and young children residing in low-income communities are more at risk, due to various factors such as inadequate road infrastructure, exposure to traffic due to reliance on walking as a means of transport, and lack of supervision. This study used a cross-sectional, non-randomized self-report survey to assess pedestrian safety knowledge, road-crossing behaviour and pedestrian injuries of primary school children in selected low-income settings in Cape Town. The survey focused on three primary schools that had joined the Safe Kids Worldwide Model School Zone Project and was administered to 536 children aged 6-15 years, in their home language of isiXhosa. Descriptive and bivariate analyses as well as multivariate regression analyses were conducted to investigate potential predictor variables for pedestrian collision severity and unsafe road-crossing behaviour. Walking was the sole form of travel for 81% of the children, with a large proportion regularly walking unsupervised. Children who walk to or from school alone were younger and reported riskier road-crossing behaviour, although children who walk accompanied tended to have higher pedestrian collision severity. "Negligent Behaviour" related to road-crossing was significantly associated with higher pedestrian collision severity, with predictors of "Negligent Behaviour" including the lack of pedestrian safety knowledge and greater exposure to traffic in terms of time spent walking. More than half of the reported pedestrian collisions involved a bicycle, and older boys (10-15 years) were most at risk of experiencing a severe pedestrian injury. The findings substantiate emerging evidence that children in low-income settings are at greater risk for child pedestrian injury, and emphasise the need for evidence-based safety promotion and injury prevention interventions in these settings. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  17. INFLUENCE OF PLANNING, ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND REGULATION ON ROAD TRAFFIC SAFETY OF PEDESTRIANS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. M. Kuharenok

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents results of research on planning, organizational characteristics and regulation modes at  the regulated pedestrian crossings, located out of crossroads in the street and road network of Minsk. Some regularities pertaining to the influence of the investigated characteristics on road traffic safety of pedestrians are revealed in the paper. Practical offers on increase of road traffic safety of pedestrians in the Republic of Belarus have been developed on the basis of the executed investigations and cited in the paper. 

  18. Quieter Cars and the Safety of Blind Pedestrians: Phase 1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recognizes that quieter cars such as hybrid-electric vehicles in low-speed operation using their : electric motors, may introduce a safety issue for pedestrians who are blind. This study documents th...

  19. Effect of electronic device use on pedestrian safety : a literature review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-04-01

    This literature review on the effect of electronic device use on pedestrian safety is part of a research project sponsored by the Office of Behavioral Safety Research in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). An extensive literat...

  20. Method for Pedestrian Crossing Risk Assessment and Safety Level Determination: the Case Study of Tallinn

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pashkevich, M.; Krasilnikova, A.; Antov, D.

    2016-07-01

    Pedestrians are a part of vulnerable road users which safety requires a special attention. Official statistics in Estonia from the last decade returns the following numbers: around 30 % of all road traffic accidents in the country were accidents with pedestrians, 32 % of all traffic fatalities were finished with pedestrian death. Pedestrian crossing has the biggest risk level between all kinds of pedestrian facilities, because it includes a direct conflict point between vehicle and pedestrian traffics. The article presents a method to assess risk of pedestrian crossing users and to determine safety level of this road infrastructure element. This approach is based on observation and collection of infrastructural as well as traffic data, which includes: (1) information about each pedestrian crossing facility, its location and state, (2) data about accidents with pedestrians and their features, (3) data from road traffic measurements. The main advantages of the described method are universality and comprehensiveness. The case study was done in Kristiine district of the city Tallinn, which was chosen as the most typical average district of Estonian capital. Results of this study are also presented in the article. (Author)

  1. Far-Infrared Based Pedestrian Detection for Driver-Assistance Systems Based on Candidate Filters, Gradient-Based Feature and Multi-Frame Approval Matching.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Guohua; Liu, Qiong

    2015-12-21

    Far-infrared pedestrian detection approaches for advanced driver-assistance systems based on high-dimensional features fail to simultaneously achieve robust and real-time detection. We propose a robust and real-time pedestrian detection system characterized by novel candidate filters, novel pedestrian features and multi-frame approval matching in a coarse-to-fine fashion. Firstly, we design two filters based on the pedestrians' head and the road to select the candidates after applying a pedestrian segmentation algorithm to reduce false alarms. Secondly, we propose a novel feature encapsulating both the relationship of oriented gradient distribution and the code of oriented gradient to deal with the enormous variance in pedestrians' size and appearance. Thirdly, we introduce a multi-frame approval matching approach utilizing the spatiotemporal continuity of pedestrians to increase the detection rate. Large-scale experiments indicate that the system works in real time and the accuracy has improved about 9% compared with approaches based on high-dimensional features only.

  2. Development of a portable bicycle/pedestrian monitoring system for safety enhancement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Usher, Colin; Daley, W. D. R.

    2015-03-01

    Pedestrians involved in roadway accidents account for nearly 12 percent of all traffic fatalities and 59,000 injuries each year. Most injuries occur when pedestrians attempt to cross roads, and there have been noted differences in accident rates midblock vs. at intersections. Collecting data on pedestrian behavior is a time consuming manual process that is prone to error. This leads to a lack of quality information to guide the proper design of lane markings and traffic signals to enhance pedestrian safety. Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute are developing and testing an automated system that can be rapidly deployed for data collection to support the analysis of pedestrian behavior at intersections and midblock crossings with and without traffic signals. This system will analyze the collected video data to automatically identify and characterize the number of pedestrians and their behavior. It consists of a mobile trailer with four high definition pan-tilt cameras for data collection. The software is custom designed and uses state of the art commercial pedestrian detection algorithms. We will be presenting the system hardware and software design, challenges, and results from the preliminary system testing. Preliminary results indicate the ability to provide representative quantitative data on pedestrian motion data more efficiently than current techniques.

  3. Factors influencing safety in a sample of marked pedestrian crossings selected for safety inspections in the city of Oslo.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elvik, Rune; Sørensen, Michael W J; Nævestad, Tor-Olav

    2013-10-01

    This paper reports an analysis of factors influencing safety in a sample of marked pedestrian crossings in the city of Oslo, Norway. The sample consists of 159 marked pedestrian crossings where a total of 316 accidents were recorded during a period of five years. The crossings were selected for inspection because of they were, for various reasons, regarded as sub-standard. The sample of crossings is therefore not representative of all pedestrian crossings in Oslo. Factors influencing the number of accidents were studied by means of negative binomial regression. Factors that were studied included the volume of pedestrians and vehicles, the number of traffic lanes at the crossing, the location of the crossing (midblock or junction), the type of traffic control, the share of pedestrians using the crossing and the speed of approaching vehicles. The analysis confirmed the presence of a "safety-in-numbers" effect, meaning that an increase in the number of pedestrians is associated with a lower risk of accident for each pedestrian. Crossings located in four-leg junctions or roundabouts had more accidents than crossings located in three-leg junctions or on sections between junctions. A high share of pedestrians crossing the road outside the marked crossing was associated with a high number of accidents. Increased speed was associated with an increased number of accidents. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Pedestrian fatalities and injuries involving Irish older people.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Martin, A J

    2012-02-01

    BACKGROUND: It has been established internationally that road traffic accidents (RTAs) involving older drivers follow clearly different patterns of timing, location and outcomes from those of younger age groups. Older pedestrians are also a vulnerable group and fewer analyses have been undertaken of the phenomenology of their injuries and fatalities. We studied the pattern of pedestrian RTAs in Ireland over a five-year period with the aim of identifying differences between older pedestrians (aged 65 or older) and younger adults. METHODS: We examined the datasets of the Irish National Road Authority (now the Road Safety Authority) from 1998-2002. We analysed patterns of crashes involving older pedestrians (aged 65) and compared them with younger adults (aged 18-64). RESULTS: Older people represented 36% (n = 134) of pedestrian fatalities and 23% of serious injuries while they only account for 19% of total RTAs. Mortality in RTA is more than doubled for older pedestrians compared to younger adults (RR 2.30). Most accidents involving older pedestrians happen in daylight with good visibility (56%) and in good weather conditions (77%). CONCLUSIONS: Older pedestrians are particularly vulnerable in RTAs. These occur more frequently during daylight hours and in good weather conditions. This may point to a need for prevention strategies that are targeted at the traffic environment and other road users rather than at older people.

  5. Risk and safety perception on urban and rural roads: Effects of environmental features, driver age and risk sensitivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cox, Jolene A; Beanland, Vanessa; Filtness, Ashleigh J

    2017-10-03

    The ability to detect changing visual information is a vital component of safe driving. In addition to detecting changing visual information, drivers must also interpret its relevance to safety. Environmental changes considered to have high safety relevance will likely demand greater attention and more timely responses than those considered to have lower safety relevance. The aim of this study was to explore factors that are likely to influence perceptions of risk and safety regarding changing visual information in the driving environment. Factors explored were the environment in which the change occurs (i.e., urban vs. rural), the type of object that changes, and the driver's age, experience, and risk sensitivity. Sixty-three licensed drivers aged 18-70 years completed a hazard rating task, which required them to rate the perceived hazardousness of changing specific elements within urban and rural driving environments. Three attributes of potential hazards were systematically manipulated: the environment (urban, rural); the type of object changed (road sign, car, motorcycle, pedestrian, traffic light, animal, tree); and its inherent safety risk (low risk, high risk). Inherent safety risk was manipulated by either varying the object's placement, on/near or away from the road, or altering an infrastructure element that would require a change to driver behavior. Participants also completed two driving-related risk perception tasks, rating their relative crash risk and perceived risk of aberrant driving behaviors. Driver age was not significantly associated with hazard ratings, but individual differences in perceived risk of aberrant driving behaviors predicted hazard ratings, suggesting that general driving-related risk sensitivity plays a strong role in safety perception. In both urban and rural scenes, there were significant associations between hazard ratings and inherent safety risk, with low-risk changes perceived as consistently less hazardous than high

  6. Pedestrians have the right of way at CERN

    CERN Multimedia

    2002-01-01

    At CERN, we are all pedestrians, often drivers, and occasionally cyclists. But our means of locomotion do not matter so long as we exercise caution and remember that a pedestrian has equal rights as a road user, except that he runs greater risks.   Whether we also travel by bike or car, irrrespective of our means of locomotion at CERN we are all pedestrians! Whether going on foot to our office, the cafeteria or a building where colleagues work, we are much more in harm's way than as a driver sitting in the shell of steel that is a car. There are some 8000 people working on the different sites of CERN. That means 8000 potential pedestrians and 8000 reasons for trying to keep the roads safe. Whether behind the steering wheel or on a bike, we sometimes forget that the roadway is not just for vehicles. Pedestrians are also fully fledged road users with equal rights. That is why drivers must remain alert and take care not to block pedestrian crossings, pavements or access ways, and why special caution...

  7. Effect of cell phone distraction on pediatric pedestrian injury risk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stavrinos, Despina; Byington, Katherine W; Schwebel, David C

    2009-02-01

    Early adolescents are using cell phones with increasing frequency. Cell phones are known to distract motor vehicle drivers to the point that their safety is jeopardized, but it is unclear if cell phones might also distract child pedestrians. This study was designed to examine the influence of talking on a cell phone for pediatric pedestrian injury risk. Seventy-seven children aged 10 to 11 years old completed simulated road crossings in an immersive, interactive virtual pedestrian environment. In a within-subjects design, children crossed the virtual street 6 times while undistracted and 6 times while distracted by a cell phone conversation with an unfamiliar research assistant. Participants also completed several other experimental tasks hypothesized to predict the impact of distraction while crossing the street and talking on a cell phone. Children's pedestrian safety was compromised when distracted by a cell phone conversation. While distracted, children were less attentive to traffic; left less safe time between their crossing and the next arriving vehicle; experienced more collisions and close calls with oncoming traffic; and waited longer before beginning to cross the street. Analyses testing experience using a cell phone and experience as a pedestrian yielded few significant results, suggesting that distraction on the cell phone might affect children's pedestrian safety no matter what their experience level. There was some indication that younger children and children who are less attentive and more oppositional may be slightly more susceptible to distraction while talking on the cell phone than older, more attentive, and less oppositional children. Our results suggest that cell phones distract preadolescent children while crossing streets.

  8. Pedestrian Urban Safety System and Comfort at Traffic Signals PUSSYCATS : new pedestrian facilities : technique, observations and opinions, a drive-project in France, the UK and The Netherlands.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Levelt, P.B.M.

    1994-01-01

    PUSSYCATS (Pedestrian Urban Safety System and Comfort at Traffic Signals) is a new system incorporating technical improvements better adapted to pedestrians needs and behaviour. A Kerb-side detector mat replaces the push buttons, with infrared sensors detecting the presence of pedestrians on the

  9. Evaluation of microwave detection equipment in terms of reliability, durability and pedestrian safety.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schagen, I. van & Sherborne, D.

    1991-01-01

    Urban traffic light cycle times are almost exclusively directed at maximizing throughput and minimizing delay of motorized traffic. The needs of pedestrians and pedal cyclists are of minor importance and their delay times are usually disregarded. Both safety and mobility of pedestrians and pedal

  10. Increasing of visibility on the pedestrian crossing by the additional lighting systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baleja, Richard; Bos, Petr; Novak, Tomas; Sokansky, Karel; Hanusek, Tomas

    2017-09-01

    Pedestrian crossings are critical places for road accidents between pedestrians and motor vehicles. For this reason, it is very important to increase attention when the pedestrian crossings are designed and it is necessary to take into account all factors that may contribute to higher safety. Additional lighting systems for pedestrian crossings are one of them and the lighting systems must fulfil the requirements for higher visibility from the point of view of car drivers from both directions. This paper describes the criteria for the suitable additional lighting system on pedestrian crossings. Generally, it means vertical illuminance on the pedestrian crossing from the driver’s view, horizontal illuminance on the crossing and horizontal illuminance both in front of and behind the crossing placed on the road and their acceptable ratios. The article also describes the choice of the colours of the light (correlated colour temperature) and its influence on visibility. As a part of the article, there are case designs of additional lighting systems for pedestrian crossings and measurements from realized additional lighting systems by luxmeters and luminance cameras and their evaluation.

  11. Predictors of road crossing safety in pedestrians with Parkinson's disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Chin-Hsien; Ou, Yang-Kun; Wu, Ruey-Meei; Liu, Yung-Ching

    2013-03-01

    Road-crossing safety is an important issue in an aging society. Information regarding the risk of crossing the street to pedestrians with Parkinson's disease (PD) is limited. To assess the risk and predictors of unsafe crossing behaviors in patients with PD, we compared 31 pedestrians with mild-to-moderate PD to 50 age/gender/education-matched controls using a battery of cognitive, visual, and motor tests. With a simulated simple street-crossing situation, we determined the remaining time and safety margin for each participant in different traffic situations, including variable motor vehicle speed, time gap, and time of the day. Odds ratios (ORs) were estimated by logistic regression models. We found that pedestrians with PD were more vulnerable to traffic accidents than controls (OR 1.61 [1.28-2.02], P=0.01). The risk of crossing road correlated in a dose-dependent manner with the severity of PD, based on both Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) stages and unified Parkinson's disease rating scale (UPDRS) motor scores (OR 1.13 for each increasing point of UPDSR, Psafety errors, rather than executive function. Environmental factors, such as fast approaching motor vehicle speed (OR 4.50 [2.92-6.95], Proad-crossing safety. Future large sample studies are needed to confirm our findings. Training programs or portable stimulator devices that compensate for the visual-spatial disabilities of PD patients are required to improve road safety for PD patients. Crown Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Estimating Safety Effects of Green-Man Countdown Devices at Signalized Pedestrian Crosswalk Based on Cellular Automata

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chen Chai

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Safety effects of Green-Man Countdown Device (GMCD at signalized pedestrian crosswalks are evaluated. Pedestrian behavior at GMCD and non-GMCD crosswalks is observed and analyzed. A microsimulation model is developed based on field observations to estimate safety performance. Simulation outputs allow analysts to assess the impacts of GMCD at various conditions with different geometric layout, traffic and pedestrian volumes, and the green time. According to simulation results, it is found that the safety impact of GMCD is affected by traffic condition as well as different time duration within green-man signal phase. In general, GMCD increases average walking velocity, especially during the last few seconds. The installation of GMCD improves safety performance generally, especially at more crowded crossings. Conflict severity is increased during last 10 s after GMCD installation. Findings from this study suggest that the current practice, which is to install GMCD at more crowded crosswalks or near the school zone, is effective. Moreover, at crosswalks with GMCD, longer all red signal phase is suggested to improve pedestrian safety during intergreen period.

  13. Raised crosswalks on entrance to the roundabout-a case study on effectiveness of treatment on pedestrian safety and convenience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Candappa, Nimmi; Stephan, Karen; Fotheringham, Nicola; Lenné, Michael G; Corben, Bruce

    2014-01-01

    A common concern in the use of a roundabout is providing adequately for the pedestrian. This unique roundabout layout, which introduces raised crosswalks directly at the roundabout entrance, as opposed to at a car length back, aims at improving safety and convenience for pedestrians at roundabouts. A preliminary evaluation of the layout was undertaken to establish its effectiveness in meeting study objectives. A quasi-experimental before-and-after study design was used to compare speeds on approach and immediately prior to the crossing to ascertain potential impact speed and implications for pedestrian safety. Compliance to crossing and crossing time were also compared in relation to safety and convenience outcomes. A questionnaire assessed pedestrian perception of the safety and convenience at the roundabout before and after treatment. Results from this case study indicate that mean approach speeds (free speeds 30 m from crossing) reduced from 32.7 to 30.7 km/h and immediately prior to crossing, mean speeds reduced from 19.1 to 16.3 km/h. There was also a marked reduction in proportions of vehicles traveling at speeds that could elevate risk to pedestrians. Total crossing time after treatment reduced by around 4 s, and crossing compliance increased from approximately half to approximately 90 percent. Survey of pedestrians indicated positive response to the perceived safety and convenience posttreatment. Preliminary results of the case study suggest positive safety and convenience outcomes. Implications for pedestrian safety include less exposure to traffic and lower risk of serious injury, particularly for elderly pedestrians; convenience outcomes include shorter waiting times to cross and greater compliance to the crossing. A larger study is required to substantiate the findings.

  14. Acoustic characteristics of hybrid electric vehicles and the safety of pedestrians who are blind

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-01

    Quieter cars such as electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) may reduce auditory cues used by pedestrians to assess the state of nearby traffic and, as a result, their use may have an adverse impact on pedestrian safety. In order ...

  15. Far-Infrared Based Pedestrian Detection for Driver-Assistance Systems Based on Candidate Filters, Gradient-Based Feature and Multi-Frame Approval Matching

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guohua Wang

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Far-infrared pedestrian detection approaches for advanced driver-assistance systems based on high-dimensional features fail to simultaneously achieve robust and real-time detection. We propose a robust and real-time pedestrian detection system characterized by novel candidate filters, novel pedestrian features and multi-frame approval matching in a coarse-to-fine fashion. Firstly, we design two filters based on the pedestrians’ head and the road to select the candidates after applying a pedestrian segmentation algorithm to reduce false alarms. Secondly, we propose a novel feature encapsulating both the relationship of oriented gradient distribution and the code of oriented gradient to deal with the enormous variance in pedestrians’ size and appearance. Thirdly, we introduce a multi-frame approval matching approach utilizing the spatiotemporal continuity of pedestrians to increase the detection rate. Large-scale experiments indicate that the system works in real time and the accuracy has improved about 9% compared with approaches based on high-dimensional features only.

  16. Influence of pedestrian age and gender on spatial and temporal distribution of pedestrian crashes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toran Pour, Alireza; Moridpour, Sara; Tay, Richard; Rajabifard, Abbas

    2018-01-02

    Every year, about 1.24 million people are killed in traffic crashes worldwide and more than 22% of these deaths are pedestrians. Therefore, pedestrian safety has become a significant traffic safety issue worldwide. In order to develop effective and targeted safety programs, the location- and time-specific influences on vehicle-pedestrian crashes must be assessed. The main purpose of this research is to explore the influence of pedestrian age and gender on the temporal and spatial distribution of vehicle-pedestrian crashes to identify the hotspots and hot times. Data for all vehicle-pedestrian crashes on public roadways in the Melbourne metropolitan area from 2004 to 2013 are used in this research. Spatial autocorrelation is applied in examining the vehicle-pedestrian crashes in geographic information systems (GIS) to identify any dependency between time and location of these crashes. Spider plots and kernel density estimation (KDE) are then used to determine the temporal and spatial patterns of vehicle-pedestrian crashes for different age groups and genders. Temporal analysis shows that pedestrian age has a significant influence on the temporal distribution of vehicle-pedestrian crashes. Furthermore, men and women have different crash patterns. In addition, results of the spatial analysis shows that areas with high risk of vehicle-pedestrian crashes can vary during different times of the day for different age groups and genders. For example, for those between ages 18 and 65, most vehicle-pedestrian crashes occur in the central business district (CBD) during the day, but between 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., crashes among this age group occur mostly around hotels, clubs, and bars. This research reveals that temporal and spatial distributions of vehicle-pedestrian crashes vary for different pedestrian age groups and genders. Therefore, specific safety measures should be in place during high crash times at different locations for different age groups and genders to

  17. Pedestrian interaction with vehicles : roles of explicit and implicit communication

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dey, D.; Terken, J.M.B.

    This paper presents a study that aimed to identify the importance of eye contact and gestures between pedestrians and drivers. A video-based observation and coding was undertaken to categorize the road-crossing and communication behavior of pedestrians and drivers in busy traffic situations where

  18. Optimal Design of HGV Front Structure for Pedestrian Safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramli, Faiz Redza; Yamazaki, Koetsu

    This paper addresses a pedestrian safety design of front structure of Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) by two concepts; firstly by equipping a lower bumper stiffener structure under the front bumper and secondly by putting an airbag in front of the HGV front panel. In this study, HGV-pedestrian collision accident was simulated by the crash analysis solver MADYMO environment, where the HGV model with the speed of 20 km/h was collided with an adult male and with an adult female pedestrian, respectively. The bumper and lower bumper stiffener were varied their positions, while the airbag was adjusted the vent hole size and the position of airbag in front of front panel vertically. The pedestrian injuries that can be sustained during the simulation impact were limited at the critical body parts of head, chest, upper leg; an injury criteria of Head Injury Criterion (HIC), Thorax Cumulative 3ms Acceleration (C3ms) and peak loads of femur, respectively. Because of various parameters and constraints of initial conditions and injury thresholds, a multi-objective optimization design problem considered these main injury criterion is solved in order to achieve the best solution for this study. The results of optimized design parameters for each cases and conditions were obtained and the possibilities of the proposed concept were discussed.

  19. The effects of acute sleep restriction on adolescents' pedestrian safety in a virtual environment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Aaron L; Avis, Kristin T; Schwebel, David C

    2013-12-01

    Over 8,000 American adolescents ages 14-15 years require medical attention owing to pedestrian injury annually. Cognitive factors contributing to pedestrian safety include reaction time, impulsivity, risk taking, attention, and decision making. These characteristics are also influenced by sleep restriction. Experts recommend that adolescents obtain 8.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, but most American adolescents do not. Inadequate sleep may place adolescents at risk for pedestrian injury. Using a within-subjects design, 55 14- and 15-year-olds engaged in a virtual reality pedestrian environment under two conditions, scheduled a week apart: sleep-restricted (4 hours' sleep the previous night) and adequate sleep (8.5 hours). Sleep was assessed using actigraphy and pedestrian behavior via four outcome measures: time to initiate crossing, time before contact with vehicle while crossing, virtual hits or close calls and attention to traffic (looks left and right). While acutely sleep restricted, adolescents took more time to initiate pedestrian crossings, crossed with less time before contact with vehicles, experienced more virtual hits or close calls, and looked left and right more often compared with when adequately rested. Results were maintained after controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and average total sleep duration before each condition. Adolescent pedestrian behavior in the simulated virtual environment was markedly different, and generally more risky, when acutely sleep restricted compared with adequately rested. Inadequate sleep may influence cognitive functioning to the extent that pedestrian safety is jeopardized among adolescents capable of crossing streets safely when rested. Policy decisions might be educated by these results. Copyright © 2013 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Pedestrian recognition using automotive radar sensors

    OpenAIRE

    A. Bartsch; F. Fitzek; R. H. Rasshofer

    2012-01-01

    The application of modern series production automotive radar sensors to pedestrian recognition is an important topic in research on future driver assistance systems. The aim of this paper is to understand the potential and limits of such sensors in pedestrian recognition. This knowledge could be used to develop next generation radar sensors with improved pedestrian recognition capabilities. A new raw radar data signal processing algorithm is proposed that allows deep insight...

  1. The effect of road network patterns on pedestrian safety: A zone-based Bayesian spatial modeling approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Qiang; Xu, Pengpeng; Pei, Xin; Wong, S C; Yao, Danya

    2017-02-01

    Pedestrian safety is increasingly recognized as a major public health concern. Extensive safety studies have been conducted to examine the influence of multiple variables on the occurrence of pedestrian-vehicle crashes. However, the explicit relationship between pedestrian safety and road network characteristics remains unknown. This study particularly focused on the role of different road network patterns on the occurrence of crashes involving pedestrians. A global integration index via space syntax was introduced to quantify the topological structures of road networks. The Bayesian Poisson-lognormal (PLN) models with conditional autoregressive (CAR) prior were then developed via three different proximity structures: contiguity, geometry-centroid distance, and road network connectivity. The models were also compared with the PLN counterpart without spatial correlation effects. The analysis was based on a comprehensive crash dataset from 131 selected traffic analysis zones in Hong Kong. The results indicated that higher global integration was associated with more pedestrian-vehicle crashes; the irregular pattern network was proved to be safest in terms of pedestrian crash occurrences, whereas the grid pattern was the least safe; the CAR model with a neighborhood structure based on road network connectivity was found to outperform in model goodness-of-fit, implying the importance of accurately accounting for spatial correlation when modeling spatially aggregated crash data. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Kinematic responses and injuries of pedestrian in car-pedestrian collisions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teng, T. L.; Liang, C. C.; Hsu, C. Y.; Tai, S. F.

    2017-10-01

    How to protect pedestrians and reduce the collision injury has gradually become the new field of automotive safety research and focus in the world. Many engineering studies have appeared and their purpose is trying to reduce the pedestrian injuries caused by traffic accident. The physical model involving impactor model and full scale pedestrian model are costly when taking the impact test. This study constructs a vehicle-pedestrian collision model by using the MADYMO. To verify the accuracy of the proposed vehicle-pedestrian collision model, the experimental data are used in the pedestrian model test. The proposed model also will be applied to analyze the kinematic responses and injuries of pedestrian in collisions in this study. The modeled results can help assess the pedestrian friendliness of vehicles and assist in the future development of pedestrian friendliness vehicle technologies.

  3. Epidemiology of pedestrian-MVCs by road type in Cluj, Romania.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamann, Cara; Peek-Asa, Corinne; Rus, Diana

    2015-04-01

    Pedestrian-motor vehicle (PMV) crash rates in Romania are among the highest in all of Europe. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of pedestrian-MVCs in Cluj County, Romania, on the two major types of roadways: national or local. Cluj County police crash report data from 2010 were used to identify pedestrian, driver and crash characteristics of pedestrian-MVCs. Crashes with available location data were geocoded and road type (national or local) for each crash was determined. Distributions of crash characteristics were examined by road type and multivariable logistic regression models were built to determine predictors of crash road type. Crashes occurring on national roads involved more teenagers and adults, while those on local roads involved more young children (0-12) and older adults (65+) (pRomania. Results from this study suggest that factors leading to PMV crashes on national roads are more likely to involve driver-related causes compared with local roads. Intervention priorities to reduce pedestrian crashes on national roads should be directed towards driver behaviour on national roads. Further examination of driver and pedestrian behaviours related to crash risk on both national and local roads, such as distraction and speeding, is warranted. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  4. Pedestrian signalization and the risk of pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions in Lima, Peru.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quistberg, D Alex; Koepsell, Thomas D; Boyle, Linda Ng; Miranda, J Jaime; Johnston, Brian D; Ebel, Beth E

    2014-09-01

    Safe walking environments are essential for protecting pedestrians and promoting physical activity. In Peru, pedestrians comprise over three-quarters of road fatality victims. Pedestrian signalization plays an important role managing pedestrian and vehicle traffic and may help improve pedestrian safety. We examined the relationship between pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions and the presence of visible traffic signals, pedestrian signals, and signal timing to determine whether these countermeasures improved pedestrian safety. A matched case-control design was used where the units of study were crossing locations. We randomly sampled 97 control-matched collisions (weighted N=1134) at intersections occurring from October, 2010 to January, 2011 in Lima. Each case-control pair was matched on proximity, street classification, and number of lanes. Sites were visited between February, 2011 and September, 2011. Each analysis accounted for sampling weight and matching and was adjusted for vehicle and pedestrian traffic flow, crossing width, and mean vehicle speed. Collisions were more common where a phased pedestrian signal (green or red-light signal) was present compared to no signalization (odds ratio [OR] 8.88, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.32-59.6). A longer pedestrian-specific signal duration was associated with collision risk (OR 5.31, 95% CI 1.02-9.60 per 15-s interval). Collisions occurred more commonly in the presence of any signalization visible to pedestrians or pedestrian-specific signalization, though these associations were not statistically significant. Signalization efforts were not associated with lower risk for pedestrians; rather, they were associated with an increased risk of pedestrian-vehicle collisions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Assessment of Integrated Pedestrian Protection Systems with Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) and Passive Safety Components.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, Mervyn; Nathanson, Andrew; Carroll, Jolyon; Wisch, Marcus; Zander, Oliver; Lubbe, Nils

    2015-01-01

    Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems fitted to cars for pedestrians have been predicted to offer substantial benefit. On this basis, consumer rating programs-for example, the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP)-are developing rating schemes to encourage fitment of these systems. One of the questions that needs to be answered to do this fully is how the assessment of the speed reduction offered by the AEB is integrated with the current assessment of the passive safety for mitigation of pedestrian injury. Ideally, this should be done on a benefit-related basis. The objective of this research was to develop a benefit-based methodology for assessment of integrated pedestrian protection systems with AEB and passive safety components. The method should include weighting procedures to ensure that it represents injury patterns from accident data and replicates an independently estimated benefit of AEB. A methodology has been developed to calculate the expected societal cost of pedestrian injuries, assuming that all pedestrians in the target population (i.e., pedestrians impacted by the front of a passenger car) are impacted by the car being assessed, taking into account the impact speed reduction offered by the car's AEB (if fitted) and the passive safety protection offered by the car's frontal structure. For rating purposes, the cost for the assessed car is normalized by comparing it to the cost calculated for a reference car. The speed reductions measured in AEB tests are used to determine the speed at which each pedestrian in the target population will be impacted. Injury probabilities for each impact are then calculated using the results from Euro NCAP pedestrian impactor tests and injury risk curves. These injury probabilities are converted into cost using "harm"-type costs for the body regions tested. These costs are weighted and summed. Weighting factors were determined using accident data from Germany and Great Britain and an independently

  6. Estimation of left-turning vehicle maneuvers for the assessment of pedestrian safety at intersections

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wael K.M. Alhajyaseen

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Improving pedestrian safety at intersections remains a critical issue. Although several types of safety countermeasures, such as reforming intersection layouts, have been implemented, methods have not yet been established to quantitatively evaluate the effects of these countermeasures before installation. One of the main issues in pedestrian safety is conflicts with turning vehicles. This study aims to develop an integrated model to represent the variations in the maneuvers of left-turners (left-hand traffic at signalized intersections that dynamically considers the vehicle reaction to intersection geometry and crossing pedestrians. The proposed method consists of four empirically developed stochastic sub-models, including a path model, free-flow speed profile model, lag/gap acceptance model, and stopping/clearing speed profile model. Since safety assessment is the main objective driving the development of the proposed model, this study uses post-encroachment time (PET and vehicle speed at the crosswalk as validation parameters. Preliminary validation results obtained by Monte Carlo simulation show that the proposed integrated model can realistically represent the variations in vehicle maneuvers as well as the distribution of PET and vehicle speeds at the crosswalk.

  7. Age and pedestrian injury severity in motor-vehicle crashes: a heteroskedastic logit analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Joon-Ki; Ulfarsson, Gudmundur F; Shankar, Venkataraman N; Kim, Sungyop

    2008-09-01

    This research explores the injury severity of pedestrians in motor-vehicle crashes. It is hypothesized that the variance of unobserved pedestrian characteristics increases with age. In response, a heteroskedastic generalized extreme value model is used. The analysis links explanatory factors with four injury outcomes: fatal, incapacitating, non-incapacitating, and possible or no injury. Police-reported crash data between 1997 and 2000 from North Carolina, USA, are used. The results show that pedestrian age induces heteroskedasticity which affects the probability of fatal injury. The effect grows more pronounced with increasing age past 65. The heteroskedastic model provides a better fit than the multinomial logit model. Notable factors increasing the probability of fatal pedestrian injury: increasing pedestrian age, male driver, intoxicated driver (2.7 times greater probability of fatality), traffic sign, commercial area, darkness with or without streetlights (2-4 times greater probability of fatality), sport-utility vehicle, truck, freeway, two-way divided roadway, speeding-involved, off roadway, motorist turning or backing, both driver and pedestrian at fault, and pedestrian only at fault. Conversely, the probability of a fatal injury decreased: with increasing driver age, during the PM traffic peak, with traffic signal control, in inclement weather, on a curved roadway, at a crosswalk, and when walking along roadway.

  8. Using Space Syntax to Assess Safety in Public Areas - Case Study of Tarbiat Pedestrian Area, Tabriz-Iran

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cihangir Çamur, Kübra; Roshani, Mehdi; Pirouzi, Sania

    2017-10-01

    In studying the urban complex issues, simulation and modelling of public space use considerably helps in determining and measuring factors such as urban safety. Depth map software for determining parameters of the spatial layout techniques; and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software for analysing and evaluating the views of the pedestrians on public safety were used in this study. Connectivity, integration, and depth of the area in the Tarbiat city blocks were measured using the Space Syntax Method, and these parameters are presented as graphical and mathematical data. The combination of the results obtained from the questionnaire and statistical analysis with the results of spatial arrangement technique represents the appropriate and inappropriate spaces for pedestrians. This method provides a useful and effective instrument for decision makers, planners, urban designers and programmers in order to evaluate public spaces in the city. Prior to physical modification of urban public spaces, space syntax simulates the pedestrian safety to be used as an analytical tool by the city management. Finally, regarding the modelled parameters and identification of different characteristics of the case, this study represents the strategies and policies in order to increase the safety of the pedestrians of Tarbiat in Tabriz.

  9. Issues and challenges for pedestrian active safety systems based on real world accidents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamdane, Hédi; Serre, Thierry; Masson, Catherine; Anderson, Robert

    2015-09-01

    The purpose of this study was to analyze real crashes involving pedestrians in order to evaluate the potential effectiveness of autonomous emergency braking systems (AEB) in pedestrian protection. A sample of 100 real accident cases were reconstructed providing a comprehensive set of data describing the interaction between the vehicle, the environment and the pedestrian all along the scenario of the accident. A generic AEB system based on a camera sensor for pedestrian detection was modeled in order to identify the functionality of its different attributes in the timeline of each crash scenario. These attributes were assessed to determine their impact on pedestrian safety. The influence of the detection and the activation of the AEB system were explored by varying the field of view (FOV) of the sensor and the level of deceleration. A FOV of 35° was estimated to be required to detect and react to the majority of crash scenarios. For the reaction of a system (from hazard detection to triggering the brakes), between 0.5 and 1s appears necessary. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. The flashing right turn signal with pedestrian indication : human factors studies to understand the potential of a new signal to increase awareness of and attention to crossing pedestrians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-12-01

    The flashing pedestrian indicator (FPI) is intended to alert turning drivers to the potential presence of : pedestrians in the roadway, facilitate scanning in the likely direction of pedestrians, and encourage caution and : yielding behavior in respo...

  11. Explaining reduction of pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes in Arkhangelsk, Russia, in 2005-2010.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kudryavtsev, Alexander V; Nilssen, Odd; Lund, Johan; Grjibovski, Andrej M; Ytterstad, Børge

    2012-01-01

    To explain a reduction in pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes in Arkhangelsk, Russia, in 2005-2010. Retrospective ecological study. For 2005-2010, police data on pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes, traffic violations, and total motor vehicles (MVs) were combined with data on changes in national road traffic legislation and municipal road infrastructure. Negative binomial regression was used to investigate trends in monthly rates of pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes per total MVs and estimate changes in these rates per unit changes in the safety measures. During the 6 years, the police registered 2,565 pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes: 1,597 (62%) outside crosswalks, 766 (30%) on non-signalized crosswalks, and 202 (8%) on signalized crosswalks. Crash rates outside crosswalks and on signalized crosswalks decreased on average by 1.1% per month, whereas the crash rate on non-signalized crosswalks remained unchanged. Numbers of signalized and non-signalized crosswalks increased by 14 and 19%, respectively. Also, 10% of non-signalized crosswalks were combined with speed humps, and 4% with light-reflecting vertical signs. Pedestrian penalties for traffic violations increased 4-fold. Driver penalties for ignoring prohibiting signal and failure to give way to pedestrian on non-signalized crosswalk increased 7- and 8-fold, respectively. The rate of total registered drivers' traffic violations per total MVs decreased on average by 0.3% per month. All studied infrastructure and legislative measures had inverse associations with the rate of crashes outside crosswalks. The rate of crashes on signalized crosswalks showed inverse associations with related monetary penalties. The introduction of infrastructure and legislative measures is the most probable explanation of the reduction of pedestrian-motor vehicle crashes in Arkhangelsk. The overall reduction is due to decreases in rates of crashes outside crosswalks and on signalized crosswalks. No change was observed in the rate of

  12. Safety impacts of platform tram stops on pedestrians in mixed traffic operation: A comparison group before-after crash study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naznin, Farhana; Currie, Graham; Logan, David; Sarvi, Majid

    2016-01-01

    Tram stops in mixed traffic environments present a variety of safety, accessibility and transport efficiency challenges. In Melbourne, Australia the hundred year-old electric tram system is progressively being modernized to improve passenger accessibility. Platform stops, incorporating raised platforms for level entry into low floor trams, are being retro-fitted system-wide to replace older design stops. The aim of this study was to investigate the safety impacts of platform stops over older design stops (i.e. Melbourne safety zone tram stops) on pedestrians in the context of mixed traffic tram operation in Melbourne, using an advanced before-after crash analysis approach, the comparison group (CG) method. The CG method evaluates safety impacts by taking into account the general trends in safety and the unobserved factors at treatment and comparison sites that can alter the outcomes of a simple before-after analysis. The results showed that pedestrian-involved all injury crashes reduced by 43% after platform stop installation. This paper also explores a concern that the conventional CG method might underestimate safety impacts as a result of large differences in passenger stop use between treatment and comparison sites, suggesting differences in crash risk exposure. To adjust for this, a modified analysis explored crash rates (crash counts per 10,000 stop passengers) for each site. The adjusted results suggested greater reductions in pedestrian-involved crashes after platform stop installation: an 81% reduction in pedestrian-involved all injury crashes and 86% reduction in pedestrian-involved FSI crashes, both are significant at the 95% level. Overall, the results suggest that platform stops have considerable safety benefits for pedestrians. Implications for policy and areas for future research are explored. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. The Pedestrian Detection Method Using an Extension Background Subtraction about the Driving Safety Support Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muranaka, Noriaki; Date, Kei; Tokumaru, Masataka; Imanishi, Shigeru

    In recent years, the traffic accident occurs frequently with explosion of traffic density. Therefore, we think that the safe and comfortable transportation system to defend the pedestrian who is the traffic weak is necessary. First, we detect and recognize the pedestrian (the crossing person) by the image processing. Next, we inform all the drivers of the right or left turn that the pedestrian exists by the sound and the image and so on. By prompting a driver to do safe driving in this way, the accident to the pedestrian can decrease. In this paper, we are using a background subtraction method for the movement detection of the movement object. In the background subtraction method, the update method in the background was important, and as for the conventional way, the threshold values of the subtraction processing and background update were identical. That is, the mixing rate of the input image and the background image of the background update was a fixation value, and the fine tuning which corresponded to the environment change of the weather was difficult. Therefore, we propose the update method of the background image that the estimated mistake is difficult to be amplified. We experiment and examines in the comparison about five cases of sunshine, cloudy, evening, rain, sunlight change, except night. This technique can set separately the threshold values of the subtraction processing and background update processing which suited the environmental condition of the weather and so on. Therefore, the fine tuning becomes possible freely in the mixing rate of the input image and the background image of the background update. Because the setting of the parameter which suited an environmental condition becomes important to minimize mistaking percentage, we examine about the setting of a parameter.

  14. Car-to-Pedestrian Communication Safety System Based on the Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network Environment: A Systematic Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peng Jing

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available With the unparalleled growth of motor vehicles, traffic accident between pedestrians and vehicles is one of the most serious issues in the word-wild. Plenty of injuries and fatalities are caused by the traffic accidents and crashes. The connected vehicular ad hoc network as an emerging approach which has the potential to reduce and even avoid accidents have been focused on by many researchers. A large number of car-to-pedestrian communication safety systems based on the vehicular ad hoc network are researching and developing. However, to our limited knowledge, a systematic review about the car-to-pedestrian communication safety system based on the vehicular ad-hoc network has not be written. The purpose and goal of this review is to systematically evaluate and access the reliability of car-to-pedestrian communication safety system based on the vehicular ad-hoc network environment and provide some recommendations for the future works according to throwing some light on the previous literatures. A quality evaluation was developed through established items and instruments tailored to this review. Future works are needed to focus on developing a valid as well as effective communication safety system based on the vehicular ad hoc network to protect the vulnerable road users.

  15. Vision-based pedestrian protection systems for intelligent vehicles

    CERN Document Server

    Geronimo, David

    2013-01-01

    Pedestrian Protection Systems (PPSs) are on-board systems aimed at detecting and tracking people in the surroundings of a vehicle in order to avoid potentially dangerous situations. These systems, together with other Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) such as lane departure warning or adaptive cruise control, are one of the most promising ways to improve traffic safety. By the use of computer vision, cameras working either in the visible or infra-red spectra have been demonstrated as a reliable sensor to perform this task. Nevertheless, the variability of human's appearance, not only in

  16. Safety in traffic for vulnerable military road users

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aleksandar J. Bulajić

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available The Army of Serbia, as a relatively closed system, regulates the field of traffic safety; however, during peacetime, general rules apply to all participants in traffic circulation. The Republic of Serbia is in the group of countries with a high number of road fatalities. The level of traffic safety in the Serbian Army has been on constant increase since 2000, although the relevant transport authorities in the military are not yet satisfied with the achieved level (even one lost life is too much. The increase can be deceptive, since if we take into account the substantial reduction in vehicle use due to various factors in the last few years (poor financial situation in the country as well as in the military, under-investment in the purchase of new vehicles, purchase of transportation services, fewer drivers drafted and more vehicles driven by trained officers, etc., it is not surprising that there are fewer accidents and fewer road deaths and injuries among military personnel. This paper aims at approaching the problem of pedestrian safety as a segment of road safety and at making an educational impact on all members of the military, because they all participate in traffic daily, if not as drivers or passengers, then certainly in large numbers as pedestrians. The basis of this paper is aimed at shedding light on the causes of pedestrian road fatalities due to their mistakes, i. e. 'negligence' of the participants in car accidents with the participation of pedestrians, as well as at proposing measures to reduce and prevent traffic accidents with pedestrians.

  17. 32 CFR 636.26 - Pedestrian's rights and duties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... ENFORCEMENT AND CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS MOTOR VEHICLE TRAFFIC SUPERVISION (SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS) Fort Stewart, Georgia § 636.26 Pedestrian's rights and duties. (a) Pedestrians will obey all traffic control... signals are not in place or not in operation, the driver of a vehicle will yield the right of way, by...

  18. Distracted pedestrian sustains orbital fracture while on cell phone

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edell AR

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Aimée R Edell, Jesse J Jung, Joel M Solomon, Richard N Palu Department of Ophthalmology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA Abstract: Use of cell phones in the general population has become increasingly commonplace. The distracting effects of cell phones among automobile drivers are well established, and legislation prohibits the use of handheld cell phones while driving in several states. Recent research has focused on the similar distracting effects of cell phones in the pedestrian population. In this report, an older gentleman suffered extensive facial trauma requiring surgery as a direct effect of cell phone use at the time the trauma occurred. This case highlights the role that portable electronic devices can play as a cause of ocular trauma. Keywords: orbital fracture, ocular trauma, orbital floor fracture, cell phone distraction, pedestrian safety

  19. Traveling by Bus Instead of Car on Urban Major Roads: Safety Benefits for Vehicle Occupants, Pedestrians, and Cyclists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morency, Patrick; Strauss, Jillian; Pépin, Félix; Tessier, François; Grondines, Jocelyn

    2018-04-01

    Some studies have estimated fatality and injury rates for bus occupants, but data was aggregated at the country level and made no distinction between bus types. Also, injured pedestrians and cyclists, as a result of bus travel, were overlooked. We compared injury rates for car and city bus occupants on specific urban major roads, as well as the cyclist and pedestrian injuries associated with car and bus travel. We selected ten bus routes along major urban arterials (in Montreal, Canada). Passenger-kilometers traveled were estimated from vehicle counts at intersections (2002-2010) and from bus passenger counts (2008). Police accident reports (2001-2010) provided injury data for all modes. Injury rates associated with car and bus travel were calculated for vehicle occupants, pedestrians, and cyclists. Injury rate ratios were also computed. The safety benefits of bus travel, defined as the number of vehicle occupant, cyclist, and pedestrian injuries saved, were estimated for each route. Overall, for all ten routes, the ratio between car and bus occupant injury rates is 3.7 (95% CI [3.4, 4.0]). The rates of pedestrian and cyclist injuries per hundred million passenger-kilometers are also significantly greater for car travel than that for bus travel: 4.1 (95% CI [3.5, 4.9]) times greater for pedestrian injuries; 5.3 (95% CI [3.8, 7.6]) times greater for cyclist injuries. Similar results were observed for fatally and severely injured vehicle occupants, cyclists, and pedestrians. At the route level, the safety benefits of bus travel increase with the difference in injury rate associated with car and bus travel but also with the amount of passenger-kilometers by bus. Results show that city bus is a safer mode than car, for vehicle occupants but also for cyclists and pedestrians traveling along these bus routes. The safety benefits of bus travel greatly vary across urban routes; this spatial variation is most likely linked to environmental factors. Understanding the

  20. Pedestrians' estimates of their own nighttime conspicuity are unaffected by severe reductions in headlight illumination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whetsel Borzendowski, Stephanie A; Rosenberg, Rachel L; Sewall, Ashley Stafford; Tyrrell, Richard A

    2013-12-01

    At night pedestrians tend to overestimate their conspicuity to oncoming drivers, but little is known about factors affecting pedestrians' conspicuity estimates. This study examines how headlamp intensity and pedestrians' clothing influence judgments of their own conspicuity. Forty-eight undergraduate students estimated their own conspicuity on an unilluminated closed road by walking in front of a stationary vehicle to the point at which they judged that they were just recognizable to the driver. Unknown to the participants, high beam intensity was manipulated between subjects by placing neutral density filters on the headlamps. Estimated conspicuity distances did not significantly vary with changes in headlamp intensity even when only 3% of the illumination from the headlamps was present. These findings underscore the need to educate pedestrians about the visual challenges that drivers face at night and the need to minimize pedestrians' exposure to traffic flow at night. © 2013.

  1. Vehicular camera pedestrian detection research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Jiahui

    2018-03-01

    With the rapid development of science and technology, it has made great development, but at the same time of highway traffic more convenient in highway traffic and transportation. However, in the meantime, traffic safety accidents occur more and more frequently in China. In order to deal with the increasingly heavy traffic safety. So, protecting the safety of people's personal property and facilitating travel has become a top priority. The real-time accurate pedestrian and driving environment are obtained through a vehicular camera which are used to detection and track the preceding moving targets. It is popular in the domain of intelligent vehicle safety driving, autonomous navigation and traffic system research. Based on the pedestrian video obtained by the Vehicular Camera, this paper studies the trajectory of pedestrian detection and its algorithm.

  2. Workshop to review problem-behavior research programs : pedestrian, bicycle, and pupil transportation safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    1981-09-01

    This report presents the proceedings of a workshop on pedestrian, bicycle, and pupil transportation safety. The purpose of this workshop was to develop specific recommendations for the planning and implementation of NHTSA research, development, and d...

  3. Temporal and Fine-Grained Pedestrian Action Recognition on Driving Recorder Database.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kataoka, Hirokatsu; Satoh, Yutaka; Aoki, Yoshimitsu; Oikawa, Shoko; Matsui, Yasuhiro

    2018-02-20

    The paper presents an emerging issue of fine-grained pedestrian action recognition that induces an advanced pre-crush safety to estimate a pedestrian intention in advance. The fine-grained pedestrian actions include visually slight differences (e.g., walking straight and crossing), which are difficult to distinguish from each other. It is believed that the fine-grained action recognition induces a pedestrian intention estimation for a helpful advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). The following difficulties have been studied to achieve a fine-grained and accurate pedestrian action recognition: (i) In order to analyze the fine-grained motion of a pedestrian appearance in the vehicle-mounted drive recorder, a method to describe subtle change of motion characteristics occurring in a short time is necessary; (ii) even when the background moves greatly due to the driving of the vehicle, it is necessary to detect changes in subtle motion of the pedestrian; (iii) the collection of large-scale fine-grained actions is very difficult, and therefore a relatively small database should be focused. We find out how to learn an effective recognition model with only a small-scale database. Here, we have thoroughly evaluated several types of configurations to explore an effective approach in fine-grained pedestrian action recognition without a large-scale database. Moreover, two different datasets have been collected in order to raise the issue. Finally, our proposal attained 91.01% on National Traffic Science and Environment Laboratory database (NTSEL) and 53.23% on the near-miss driving recorder database (NDRDB). The paper has improved +8.28% and +6.53% from baseline two-stream fusion convnets.

  4. Temporal and Fine-Grained Pedestrian Action Recognition on Driving Recorder Database

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hirokatsu Kataoka

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents an emerging issue of fine-grained pedestrian action recognition that induces an advanced pre-crush safety to estimate a pedestrian intention in advance. The fine-grained pedestrian actions include visually slight differences (e.g., walking straight and crossing, which are difficult to distinguish from each other. It is believed that the fine-grained action recognition induces a pedestrian intention estimation for a helpful advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS. The following difficulties have been studied to achieve a fine-grained and accurate pedestrian action recognition: (i In order to analyze the fine-grained motion of a pedestrian appearance in the vehicle-mounted drive recorder, a method to describe subtle change of motion characteristics occurring in a short time is necessary; (ii even when the background moves greatly due to the driving of the vehicle, it is necessary to detect changes in subtle motion of the pedestrian; (iii the collection of large-scale fine-grained actions is very difficult, and therefore a relatively small database should be focused. We find out how to learn an effective recognition model with only a small-scale database. Here, we have thoroughly evaluated several types of configurations to explore an effective approach in fine-grained pedestrian action recognition without a large-scale database. Moreover, two different datasets have been collected in order to raise the issue. Finally, our proposal attained 91.01% on National Traffic Science and Environment Laboratory database (NTSEL and 53.23% on the near-miss driving recorder database (NDRDB. The paper has improved +8.28% and +6.53% from baseline two-stream fusion convnets.

  5. The Crossing Speed of Elderly Pedestrians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Trpković

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available The population of elderly people is rapidly growing and in terms of safety, senior pedestrians represent one of the most vulnerable group. The pedestrian crossing speed is a significant input parameter in traffic engineering, which can have effect on pedestrians’ safety, especially of older population. The objective of this study was to determine the value of the crossing speed of elderly pedestrians (65+ for different types of urban crossings. The research was conducted at ten intersections in the city of Belgrade, Serbia, using the method of direct observation and a questionnaire for collecting data. The data were analysed in the statistical software package IBM SPSS Statistics. The results showed that elderly pedestrians walk slower and the crossing type significantly influenced the speed of older population. The order of crossing types in relation to the measured speed is ranked as follows, from the lowest to the highest speed value: unsignalized, signalized, signalized with pedestrian countdown display, signalized with pedestrian island and pedestrian countdown display and finally signalized crossing with pedestrian island. According to the questionnaire results, the elderly recognize the importance of implementing pedestrian counters. This indicates the necessity to provide safe street crossing for the elderly using the corresponding engineering measures.

  6. Pedestrian and motorists' actions at pedestrian hybrid beacon sites: findings from a pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pulugurtha, Srinivas S; Self, Debbie R

    2015-01-01

    This paper focuses on an analysis of pedestrian and motorists' actions at sites with pedestrian hybrid beacons and assesses their effectiveness in improving the safety of pedestrians. Descriptive and statistical analyses (one-tail two-sample T-test and two-proportion Z-test) were conducted using field data collected during morning and evening peak hours at three study sites in the city of Charlotte, NC, before and after the installation of pedestrian hybrid beacons. Further, an analysis was conducted to assess the change in pedestrian and motorists' actions over time (before the installation; 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months after the installation). Results showed an increase in average traffic speed at one of the pedestrian hybrid beacon sites while no specific trends were observed at the other two pedestrian hybrid beacon sites. A decrease in the number of motorists not yielding to pedestrians, pedestrians trapped in the middle of the street, and pedestrian-vehicle conflicts were observed at all the three pedestrian hybrid beacon sites. The installation of pedestrian hybrid beacons did not have a negative effect on pedestrian actions at two out of the three sites. Improvements seem to be relatively more consistent 3 months after the installation of the pedestrian hybrid beacon.

  7. Naturalistic distraction and driving safety in older drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aksan, Nazan; Dawson, Jeffrey D; Emerson, Jamie L; Yu, Lixi; Uc, Ergun Y; Anderson, Steven W; Rizzo, Matthew

    2013-08-01

    In this study, we aimed to quantify and compare performance of middle-aged and older drivers during a naturalistic distraction paradigm (visual search for roadside targets) and to predict older drivers performance given functioning in visual, motor, and cognitive domains. Distracted driving can imperil healthy adults and may disproportionally affect the safety of older drivers with visual, motor, and cognitive decline. A total of 203 drivers, 120 healthy older (61 men and 59 women, ages 65 years and older) and 83 middle-aged drivers (38 men and 45 women, ages 40 to 64 years), participated in an on-road test in an instrumented vehicle. Outcome measures included performance in roadside target identification (traffic signs and restaurants) and concurrent driver safety. Differences in visual, motor, and cognitive functioning served as predictors. Older drivers identified fewer landmarks and drove slower but committed more safety errors than did middle-aged drivers. Greater familiarity with local roads benefited performance of middle-aged but not older drivers.Visual cognition predicted both traffic sign identification and safety errors, and executive function predicted traffic sign identification over and above vision. Older adults are susceptible to driving safety errors while distracted by common secondary visual search tasks that are inherent to driving. The findings underscore that age-related cognitive decline affects older drivers' management of driving tasks at multiple levels and can help inform the design of on-road tests and interventions for older drivers.

  8. Pedestrian safety engineering and intelligent transportation system-based countermeasures program for reduced pedestrian fatalities, injuries, conflicts and other surrogate measures : Miami-Dade site.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-08-25

    This report presents the methods and key findings from the Miami-Dade comprehensive pedestrian safety planning and engineering project. It is one of three such projects in the nation funded by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to evaluate: In...

  9. CFD simulation for pedestrian wind comfort and wind safety in urban areas : general decision framework and case study for the Eindhoven University campus

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Blocken, B.J.E.; Janssen, W.D.; Hooff, van T.A.J.

    2012-01-01

    Wind comfort and wind safety for pedestrians are important requirements in urban areas. Many city authorities request studies of pedestrian wind comfort and wind safety for new buildings and new urban areas. These studies involve combining statistical meteorological data, aerodynamic information and

  10. Crossing Behaviour of Pedestrians Along Urban Streets in Malaysia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Al Bargi Walid A.

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Road crossings are considered as an unavoidable part of walking in which the desirable route of pedestrians interacts with vehicles. These interactions may expose the pedestrians to risks or delays. In Malaysia, road accident statistics show that pedestrian casualties are fairly high. Inappropriate gap acceptance when pedestrians cross roads is a main contributing element to this situation. In this context, the purpose of this study was to develop realistic models for pedestrian road crossing behaviour using the regression technique for mid-block street crossing. A choice model was produced to capture the decision making process of pedestrians whereas rejected or accepted vehicular gaps was based on the discrete choice theory. Gap acceptance data under real mix traffic conditions was collected using video camera on a typical unsignalised two lane one way urban street section in the city center of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The lognormal regression model developed for the crossing behaviour model shows that traffic speed, pedestrian waiting time, gender, crossing distance, age group, frequency of attempts and pedestrian number are the significant factors which are able to predict 77.0% of variance or changes in accepted gap size at 0.05 significance level. Higher traffic speed, lower waiting time, being a male, wider crossing distance, older age group, lower frequency of attempts and higher number of pedestrian were found to influence pedestrians to accept a bigger gap size. The binary logistic regression developed for the crossing choice model was found to be influenced by traffic speed, driver yield, pedestrian number and age group. Furthermore, lower traffic speed, willingness of drivers to slow down, more pedestrian crossings at the same time and a younger age group lead to a higher chance or probability of crossing roads. The model was validated again using 100 isolated samples and an accuracy of 98% was obtained compared to the calibrated

  11. Modeling pedestrian crossing speed profiles considering speed change behavior for the safety assessment of signalized intersections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iryo-Asano, Miho; Alhajyaseen, Wael K M

    2017-11-01

    Pedestrian safety is one of the most challenging issues in road networks. Understanding how pedestrians maneuver across an intersection is the key to applying countermeasures against traffic crashes. It is known that the behaviors of pedestrians at signalized crosswalks are significantly different from those in ordinary walking spaces, and they are highly influenced by signal indication, potential conflicts with vehicles, and intersection geometries. One of the most important characteristics of pedestrian behavior at crosswalks is the possible sudden speed change while crossing. Such sudden behavioral change may not be expected by conflicting vehicles, which may lead to hazardous situations. This study aims to quantitatively model the sudden speed changes of pedestrians as they cross signalized crosswalks under uncongested conditions. Pedestrian speed profiles are collected from empirical data and speed change events are extracted assuming that the speed profiles are stepwise functions. The occurrence of speed change events is described by a discrete choice model as a function of the necessary walking speed to complete crossing before the red interval ends, current speed, and the presence of turning vehicles in the conflict area. The amount of speed change before and after the event is modeled using regression analysis. A Monte Carlo simulation is applied for the entire speed profile of the pedestrians. The results show that the model can represent the pedestrian travel time distribution more accurately than the constant speed model. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Some aspects of the safety of elderly pedestrians and cyclists. Paper presented at the international conference `Road safety in Europe', Birmingham, England, September 9-11, 1996.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hagenzieker, M.P.

    1996-01-01

    The numbers of elderly people are increasing world-wide. Also, the mobility of the elderly people increases and the elderly generation of the coming years will spend much more time and distance in traffic than the present elderly generation; as car drivers, but also as pedestrians and/or cyclists.

  13. Detection scheme for a partially occluded pedestrian based on occluded depth in lidar-radar sensor fusion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwon, Seong Kyung; Hyun, Eugin; Lee, Jin-Hee; Lee, Jonghun; Son, Sang Hyuk

    2017-11-01

    Object detections are critical technologies for the safety of pedestrians and drivers in autonomous vehicles. Above all, occluded pedestrian detection is still a challenging topic. We propose a new detection scheme for occluded pedestrian detection by means of lidar-radar sensor fusion. In the proposed method, the lidar and radar regions of interest (RoIs) have been selected based on the respective sensor measurement. Occluded depth is a new means to determine whether an occluded target exists or not. The occluded depth is a region projected out by expanding the longitudinal distance with maintaining the angle formed by the outermost two end points of the lidar RoI. The occlusion RoI is the overlapped region made by superimposing the radar RoI and the occluded depth. The object within the occlusion RoI is detected by the radar measurement information and the occluded object is estimated as a pedestrian based on human Doppler distribution. Additionally, various experiments are performed in detecting a partially occluded pedestrian in outdoor as well as indoor environments. According to experimental results, the proposed sensor fusion scheme has much better detection performance compared to the case without our proposed method.

  14. Concept of an enhanced V2X pedestrian collision avoidance system with a cost function-based pedestrian model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kotte, Jens; Schmeichel, Carsten; Zlocki, Adrian; Gathmann, Hauke; Eckstein, Lutz

    2017-05-29

    State-of-the-art collision avoidance and collision mitigation systems predict the behavior of pedestrians based on trivial models that assume a constant acceleration or velocity. New sources of sensor information-for example, smart devices such as smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.-can support enhanced pedestrian behavior models. The objective of this article is the development and implementation of a V2Xpedestrian collision avoidance system that uses new information sources. A literature review of existing state-of-the-art pedestrian collision avoidance systems, pedestrian behavior models in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and traffic simulations is conducted together with an analysis of existing studies on typical pedestrian patterns in traffic. Based on this analysis, possible parameters for predicting pedestrian behavior were investigated. The results led to new requirements from which a concept was developed and implemented. The analysis of typical pedestrian behavior patterns in traffic situations showed the complexity of predicting pedestrian behavior. Requirements for an improved behavior prediction were derived. A concept for a V2X collision avoidance system, based on a cost function that predicts pedestrian near future presence, and its implementation is presented. The concept presented considers several challenges such as information privacy, inaccuracies of the localization, and inaccuracies of the prediction. A concept for an enhanced V2X pedestrian collision avoidance system was developed and introduced. The concept uses new information sources such as smart devices to improve the prediction of the pedestrian's presence in the near future and considers challenges that come along with the usage of these information sources.

  15. Modelling Behaviour Patterns of Pedestrians for Mobile Robot Trajectory Generation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yusuke Tamura

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Robots are expected to be operated in environments where they coexist with humans, such as shopping malls and offices. Both the safety and efficiency of a robot are necessary in such environments. To achieve this, pedestrian behaviour should be accurately predicted. However, the behaviour is uncertain and cannot be easily predicted. This paper proposes a probabilistic method of determining pedestrian trajectory based on an estimation of pedestrian behaviour patterns. The proposed method focuses on the specific behaviour of pedestrians around the robot. The proposed model classifies the behaviours of pedestrians into definite patterns. The behaviour patterns, distribution of the positions of the pedestrians, and the direction of each behaviour pattern are determined by learning through observation. The behaviour pattern of a pedestrian can be estimated correctly by a likelihood calculation. A robot decides to move with an emphasis on either safety or efficiency depending on the result of the pattern estimation. If the pedestrian trajectory follows a known behaviour pattern, the robot would move with an emphasis on efficiency because the pedestrian trajectory can be predicted. Otherwise, the robot would move with an emphasis on safety because the behaviour of the pedestrian cannot be predicted. Experimental results show that robots can move efficiently and safely when passing by a pedestrian by applying the proposed method.

  16. Pedestrian recognition using automotive radar sensors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bartsch, A.; Fitzek, F.; Rasshofer, R. H.

    2012-09-01

    The application of modern series production automotive radar sensors to pedestrian recognition is an important topic in research on future driver assistance systems. The aim of this paper is to understand the potential and limits of such sensors in pedestrian recognition. This knowledge could be used to develop next generation radar sensors with improved pedestrian recognition capabilities. A new raw radar data signal processing algorithm is proposed that allows deep insights into the object classification process. The impact of raw radar data properties can be directly observed in every layer of the classification system by avoiding machine learning and tracking. This gives information on the limiting factors of raw radar data in terms of classification decision making. To accomplish the very challenging distinction between pedestrians and static objects, five significant and stable object features from the spatial distribution and Doppler information are found. Experimental results with data from a 77 GHz automotive radar sensor show that over 95% of pedestrians can be classified correctly under optimal conditions, which is compareable to modern machine learning systems. The impact of the pedestrian's direction of movement, occlusion, antenna beam elevation angle, linear vehicle movement, and other factors are investigated and discussed. The results show that under real life conditions, radar only based pedestrian recognition is limited due to insufficient Doppler frequency and spatial resolution as well as antenna side lobe effects.

  17. Managing sidewalk pavement maintenance: A case study to increase pedestrian safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Vittoria Corazza

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Comfort is a major requirement in planning pedestrian facilities. Pedestrians walk where they feel comfortable and when they do not feel at ease, they walk elsewhere. A typical example is that filthy, distressed, or too narrow sidewalks induce pedestrians to walk on carriageways. This behaviour jeopardizes road safety and highly dangerous to most users, leave them vulnerable. Unsuitable pavements can be the result of irregular maintenance operations to restore evenness after shock damage, weather phenomena, installation of equipment (e.g., posts, fences, urban furniture with a reduction of walkable surface, or substandard repair work on pavements and patches due to emergency operations. These problems can be solved with an appropriate maintenance management system, which optimizes financial resources to make smart decisions about how to intervene with an adequate and lasting maintenance operation. This paper defines an evaluation index for sidewalk conditions as a part of an efficient set-up of a Sidewalk Management System, which is similar to the better known Road Management System. The study relies on surveys, as well as the classification and analysis of sidewalk distresses. The authors adapted an index already standardized by ASTM for roads and airports: the Pavement Condition Index (PCI. PCI has been modified to consider the specific types on the sidewalks studied within this paper. To validate the method, a case study of a residential district in Rome, Italy, was carried out. The chosen area lacks regular maintenance and has therefore resulted in a network of unsafe sidewalks. Frequent detour routes were surveyed and related to the level of distresses within a general assessment of safety. This study concentrates on sidewalks with flexible pavements because this type of pavement is the only one adopted in the survey areas and, in general, throughout Italy.

  18. Safety effects of exclusive and concurrent signal phasing for pedestrian crossing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yaohua; Mamun, Sha A; Ivan, John N; Ravishanker, Nalini; Haque, Khademul

    2015-10-01

    This paper describes the estimation of pedestrian crash count and vehicle interaction severity prediction models for a sample of signalized intersections in Connecticut with either concurrent or exclusive pedestrian phasing. With concurrent phasing, pedestrians cross at the same time as motor vehicle traffic in the same direction receives a green phase, while with exclusive phasing, pedestrians cross during their own phase when all motor vehicle traffic on all approaches is stopped. Pedestrians crossing at each intersection were observed and classified according to the severity of interactions with motor vehicles. Observation intersections were selected to represent both types of signal phasing while controlling for other physical characteristics. In the nonlinear mixed models for interaction severity, pedestrians crossing on the walk signal at an exclusive signal experienced lower interaction severity compared to those crossing on the green light with concurrent phasing; however, pedestrians crossing on a green light where an exclusive phase was available experienced higher interaction severity. Intersections with concurrent phasing have fewer total pedestrian crashes than those with exclusive phasing but more crashes at higher severity levels. It is recommended that exclusive pedestrian phasing only be used at locations where pedestrians are more likely to comply. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  19. Chinese Road Safety and Driver Behavior Research

    OpenAIRE

    Wang, Junhua

    2015-01-01

    The seminar will begin with a brief overview of the Chinese road safety situation, including current safety problems, and then move on to discuss safety research including driver behavior, freeway operational safety, and infrastructure development.

  20. The effect of road and environmental characteristics on pedestrian hit-and-run accidents in Ghana.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aidoo, Eric Nimako; Amoh-Gyimah, Richard; Ackaah, Williams

    2013-04-01

    The number of pedestrians who have died as a result of being hit by vehicles has increased in recent years, in addition to vehicle passenger deaths. Many pedestrians who were involved in road traffic accident died as a result of the driver leaving the pedestrian who was struck unattended at the scene of the accident. This paper seeks to determine the effect of road and environmental characteristics on pedestrian hit-and-run accidents in Ghana. Using pedestrian accident data extracted from the National Road Traffic Accident Database at the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ghana, a binary logit model was employed in the analysis. The results from the estimated model indicate that fatal accidents, unclear weather, nighttime conditions, and straight and flat road sections without medians and junctions significantly increase the likelihood that the vehicle driver will leave the scene after hitting a pedestrian. Thus, integrating median separation and speed humps into road design and construction and installing street lights will help to curb the problem of pedestrian hit-and-run accidents in Ghana. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Analysis on influencing factors and decision-making of pedestrian crossing at intersections

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Likun; Wang, Ziyang

    2017-10-01

    The city signal intersection always has complex traffic flow and many traffic accidents. As vulnerable participants, the proportion of traffic accidents involving pedestrians remain high. And a lot of insecure crossing behavior seriously reduce the safety of the intersection. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out in-depth study on the traversing characteristics of pedestrians, reveal the inherent laws of pedestrian crossing, and then put forward targeted measures to improve pedestrian traffic environment, protect pedestrian crossing safety and improve traffic efficiency.

  2. Empirical Behavioral Models to Support Alternative Tools for the Analysis of Mixed-Priority Pedestrian-Vehicle Interaction in a Highway Capacity Context

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rouphail, Nagui M.

    2011-01-01

    This paper presents behavioral-based models for describing pedestrian gap acceptance at unsignalized crosswalks in a mixed-priority environment, where some drivers yield and some pedestrians cross in gaps. Logistic regression models are developed to predict the probability of pedestrian crossings as a function of vehicle dynamics, pedestrian assertiveness, and other factors. In combination with prior work on probabilistic yielding models, the results can be incorporated in a simulation environment, where they can more fully describe the interaction of these two modes. The approach is intended to supplement HCM analytical procedure for locations where significant interaction occurs between drivers and pedestrians, including modern roundabouts. PMID:21643488

  3. Pedestrian crossing situations: quantification of comfort boundaries to guide intervention timing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lubbe, Nils; Rosén, Erik

    2014-10-01

    Technical systems that warn or brake for vehicle-pedestrian encounters reduce injuries more effectively the earlier an intervention is initiated. However, premature intervention can irritate drivers, leading to system deactivation and, consequently, no injury reduction whatsoever. It has been proposed that no intervention should be initiated as long as attentive drivers are within their comfort zones. This study aims at quantifying driver comfort boundaries for pedestrian crossing situations to offer guidance for the appropriate timing of interventions. Sixty two volunteers drove through an intersection on a test track at 30 and 50km/h. A pedestrian dummy was launched from behind an obstruction towards the driving path of the approaching car. Brake onset indicated discomfort. Time to collision (TTC), longitudinal and lateral distance were measured at brake onset. TTC was independent of driving speed ranging from 2.1 to 4.3s with a median of 3.2s. Longitudinal distance ranged from 19 to 48 meters with an apparent difference between driving speeds. Lateral distances differed slightly, but significantly between driving speeds. The median was 3.1m (3.2m for 30km/h and 2.9m for 50km/h) and values ranged from 1.9 to 4.1m. Lateral distance in seconds ranged from 1.9 to 4.3s with a median value of 3.1s (3.2s for 30km/h and 3.0s for 50km/h). TTC was independent of driving speed, trial order and volunteer age. It might be considered suitable to intervene in situations where, for example, 90% of drivers have exceeded their comfort boundary, i.e. when drivers have already initiated braking. This percentile value translates to intervention at a TTC of 2.5s (95% confidence 2.4-2.7s). The study was limited to Swedish nationals, fully aware drivers, and two driving speeds, but did not investigate behavioural changes due to system interaction. This study showed that TTC at brake onset was a suitable measure for the quantification of driver comfort boundaries in pedestrian crossing

  4. The safety of pedestrian crossing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Goede, M. de; Groenewoud, C.; Horst, A.R.A. van der

    2010-01-01

    More than half of all severe traffic accidents in which pedestrians or cyclists are involved, occur during road crossing. In this chapter insights, based on previous studies and literature, concerning requirements for safe and comfortable crossing facilities are discussed. In order to develop

  5. Pedestrian Detection by Laser Scanning and Depth Imagery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barsi, A.; Lovas, T.; Molnar, B.; Somogyi, A.; Igazvolgyi, Z.

    2016-06-01

    Pedestrian flow is much less regulated and controlled compared to vehicle traffic. Estimating flow parameters would support many safety, security or commercial applications. Current paper discusses a method that enables acquiring information on pedestrian movements without disturbing and changing their motion. Profile laser scanner and depth camera have been applied to capture the geometry of the moving people as time series. Procedures have been developed to derive complex flow parameters, such as count, volume, walking direction and velocity from laser scanned point clouds. Since no images are captured from the faces of pedestrians, no privacy issues raised. The paper includes accuracy analysis of the estimated parameters based on video footage as reference. Due to the dense point clouds, detailed geometry analysis has been conducted to obtain the height and shoulder width of pedestrians and to detect whether luggage has been carried or not. The derived parameters support safety (e.g. detecting critical pedestrian density in mass events), security (e.g. detecting prohibited baggage in endangered areas) and commercial applications (e.g. counting pedestrians at all entrances/exits of a shopping mall).

  6. Identifying and tracking pedestrians based on sensor fusion and motion stability predictions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Musleh, Basam; García, Fernando; Otamendi, Javier; Armingol, José Maria; de la Escalera, Arturo

    2010-01-01

    The lack of trustworthy sensors makes development of Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) applications a tough task. It is necessary to develop intelligent systems by combining reliable sensors and real-time algorithms to send the proper, accurate messages to the drivers. In this article, an application to detect and predict the movement of pedestrians in order to prevent an imminent collision has been developed and tested under real conditions. The proposed application, first, accurately measures the position of obstacles using a two-sensor hybrid fusion approach: a stereo camera vision system and a laser scanner. Second, it correctly identifies pedestrians using intelligent algorithms based on polylines and pattern recognition related to leg positions (laser subsystem) and dense disparity maps and u-v disparity (vision subsystem). Third, it uses statistical validation gates and confidence regions to track the pedestrian within the detection zones of the sensors and predict their position in the upcoming frames. The intelligent sensor application has been experimentally tested with success while tracking pedestrians that cross and move in zigzag fashion in front of a vehicle.

  7. Identifying and Tracking Pedestrians Based on Sensor Fusion and Motion Stability Predictions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arturo de la Escalera

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available The lack of trustworthy sensors makes development of Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS applications a tough task. It is necessary to develop intelligent systems by combining reliable sensors and real-time algorithms to send the proper, accurate messages to the drivers. In this article, an application to detect and predict the movement of pedestrians in order to prevent an imminent collision has been developed and tested under real conditions. The proposed application, first, accurately measures the position of obstacles using a two-sensor hybrid fusion approach: a stereo camera vision system and a laser scanner. Second, it correctly identifies pedestrians using intelligent algorithms based on polylines and pattern recognition related to leg positions (laser subsystem and dense disparity maps and u-v disparity (vision subsystem. Third, it uses statistical validation gates and confidence regions to track the pedestrian within the detection zones of the sensors and predict their position in the upcoming frames. The intelligent sensor application has been experimentally tested with success while tracking pedestrians that cross and move in zigzag fashion in front of a vehicle.

  8. Conditions that Influence Drivers' Yielding Behavior for Uncontrolled Crossings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bourquin, Eugene; Emerson, Robert Wall; Sauerburger, Dona

    2011-01-01

    Pedestrians with visual impairments need to cross streets where traffic signals and traffic signage are not present. This study examined the influences of several interventions, including a pedestrian's use of a mobility cane, on the behavior of drivers when they were expected to yield to a pedestrian crossing at an uncontrolled crossing.…

  9. Schoolbus driver performance can be improved with driver training, safety incentivisation, and vehicle roadworthy modifications

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A van Niekerk

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available In South Africa (SA, the school transport industry provides millions of children with a means of travelling to and from school. The industry has, however, been reported to be plagued by widespread safety concerns. The consequent road traffic incidents have often been attributed to driver factors, including driving in excess of legal speeds or at inappropriate speeds; driving while under the influence of alcohol, while sleepy or fatigued; or driving without using protective equipment for vehicle occupants. There are currently very few SA interventions that specifically target this important industry role-player. The Safe Travel to School Programme was recently implemented by a national child safety agency, with a focus on driver road safety awareness, defensive driver training, eye- testing, vehicle roadworthy inspections with selected upgrades, incentives for safe performance, and implementation of a vehicle telematics tracking system with regular, individual driving behaviour information updates. This quasi-experimental study offers an evaluation of the initial impact on safety performance of this telematics-based driver and vehicle safety intervention in terms of speeding, acceleration, braking, cornering, and time-of-day driving, and compares the school transport driver performance with that of general motorists. Despite concerns that some school transport vehicles are used for multiple purposes outside of school transport duties, at night, and for longer distances, overall these vehicles recorded lower percentages of speeding, lower harsh braking, and lower average harsh cornering and acceleration than general drivers.

  10. Pedestrian and bicycle crash data analysis : 2005-2010.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-04-03

    The safety of pedestrians and bicyclists using the roadway is an increasing concern for the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). This report summarizes data for motor vehicle crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists in Michigan from 2005...

  11. Pedestrian fatality risk as a function of car impact speed.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosén, Erik; Sander, Ulrich

    2009-05-01

    Knowledge of the amount of violence tolerated by the human body is essential when developing and implementing pedestrian safety strategies. When estimating the potential benefits of new countermeasures, the pedestrian fatality risk as a function of impact speed is of particular importance. Although this function has been analysed previously, we state that a proper understanding does not exist. Based on the largest in-depth, pedestrian accident study undertaken to date, we derive an improved risk function for adult pedestrians hit by the front of passenger cars. Our results show far lower fatality risks than generally reported in the traffic safety literature. This discrepancy is primarily explained by sample bias towards severe injury accidents in earlier studies. Nevertheless, a strong dependence on impact speed is found, with the fatality risk at 50 km/h being more than twice as high as the risk at 40 km/h and more than five times higher than the risk at 30 km/h. Our findings should have important implications for the development of pedestrian accident countermeasures worldwide. In particular, the scope of future pedestrian safety policies and research should be broadened to include accidents with impact speeds exceeding 50 km/h.

  12. PEDESTRIAN DETECTION BY LASER SCANNING AND DEPTH IMAGERY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Barsi

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrian flow is much less regulated and controlled compared to vehicle traffic. Estimating flow parameters would support many safety, security or commercial applications. Current paper discusses a method that enables acquiring information on pedestrian movements without disturbing and changing their motion. Profile laser scanner and depth camera have been applied to capture the geometry of the moving people as time series. Procedures have been developed to derive complex flow parameters, such as count, volume, walking direction and velocity from laser scanned point clouds. Since no images are captured from the faces of pedestrians, no privacy issues raised. The paper includes accuracy analysis of the estimated parameters based on video footage as reference. Due to the dense point clouds, detailed geometry analysis has been conducted to obtain the height and shoulder width of pedestrians and to detect whether luggage has been carried or not. The derived parameters support safety (e.g. detecting critical pedestrian density in mass events, security (e.g. detecting prohibited baggage in endangered areas and commercial applications (e.g. counting pedestrians at all entrances/exits of a shopping mall.

  13. Views of US drivers about driving safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Allan F

    2003-01-01

    To assess how drivers view dangers on the highway, what motivates them to drive safely, how they say they reduce their crash and injury risk, and how they rate their own driving skills. Most drivers rated their skills as better than average. The biggest motivating factor for safe driving was concern for safety of others in their vehicle, followed by negative outcomes such as being in a crash, increased insurance costs, and fines. The greatest threats to their safety were thought to be other drivers' actions that increase crash risk such as alcohol impairment or running red lights. In terms of reducing crashes and injuries, drivers tended to focus on actions they could take such as driving defensively or using seat belts. There was less recognition of the role of vehicles and vehicle features in crash or injury prevention. Knowing how drivers view themselves and others, their concerns, and their motivations and techniques for staying out of trouble on the roads provides insight into the difficulty of changing driving practices.

  14. Integrated assessment of pedestrian head impact protection in testing secondary safety and autonomous emergency braking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Searson, D J; Anderson, R W G; Hutchinson, T P

    2014-02-01

    Pedestrian impact testing is used to provide information to the public about the relative level of protection provided by different vehicles to a struck pedestrian. Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) is a relatively new technology that aims to reduce the impact speed of such crashes. It is expected that vehicles with AEB will pose less harm to pedestrians, and that the benefit will come about through reductions in the number of collisions and a change in the severity of impacts that will still occur. In this paper, an integration of the assessment of AEB performance and impact performance is proposed based on average injury risk. Average injury risk is calculated using the result of an impact test and a previously published distribution of real world crash speeds. A second published speed distribution is used that accounts for the effects of AEB, and reduced average risks are implied. This principle allows the effects of AEB systems and secondary safety performance to be integrated into a single measure of safety. The results are used to examine the effect of AEB on Euro NCAP and ANCAP assessments using previously published results on the likely effect of AEB. The results show that, given certain assumptions about AEB performance, the addition of AEB is approximately the equivalent of increasing Euro NCAP test performance by one band, which corresponds to an increase in the score of 25% of the maximum. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Using Cellular Automata to Investigate Pedestrian Conflicts with Vehicles in Crosswalk at Signalized Intersection

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaomeng Li

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The operational efficiency and safety of pedestrian flows at intersections is an important aspect of urban traffic. Particularly, conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles in crosswalk are one of the most influential factors for intersection safety. This paper presents a cellular automata model that simulates pedestrian and vehicle crossing behaviors at signalized intersections. Through the simulation, we investigate the effects of different pedestrian signal timing and crosswalk widths on the crosswalk capacity, the number of traffic conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles, and pedestrian delay due to the conflicts. The simulation results indicate that the cellular automata is an effective simulation platform for investigating complex pedestrian-related traffic phenomenon at signalized intersections.

  16. Work-related driver safety: A multi-level investigation

    OpenAIRE

    AMANDA ROSE WARMERDAM

    2017-01-01

    This program of research explored the organisational determinants of work-related road traffic injury in light vehicle fleets. The landscape of risk management in workplace road safety in Australia and organisational practices that influence safe driver behaviour were investigated. Key findings included that safe driving is influenced by factors at multiple levels, including senior managers, supervisors and individual fleet drivers and workplace road safety is not well integrated within curre...

  17. An open simulation approach to identify chances and limitations for vulnerable road user (VRU) active safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seiniger, Patrick; Bartels, Oliver; Pastor, Claus; Wisch, Marcus

    2013-01-01

    It is commonly agreed that active safety will have a significant impact on reducing accident figures for pedestrians and probably also bicyclists. However, chances and limitations for active safety systems have only been derived based on accident data and the current state of the art, based on proprietary simulation models. The objective of this article is to investigate these chances and limitations by developing an open simulation model. This article introduces a simulation model, incorporating accident kinematics, driving dynamics, driver reaction times, pedestrian dynamics, performance parameters of different autonomous emergency braking (AEB) generations, as well as legal and logical limitations. The level of detail for available pedestrian accident data is limited. Relevant variables, especially timing of the pedestrian appearance and the pedestrian's moving speed, are estimated using assumptions. The model in this article uses the fact that a pedestrian and a vehicle in an accident must have been in the same spot at the same time and defines the impact position as a relevant accident parameter, which is usually available from accident data. The calculations done within the model identify the possible timing available for braking by an AEB system as well as the possible speed reduction for different accident scenarios as well as for different system configurations. The simulation model identifies the lateral impact position of the pedestrian as a significant parameter for system performance, and the system layout is designed to brake when the accident becomes unavoidable by the vehicle driver. Scenarios with a pedestrian running from behind an obstruction are the most demanding scenarios and will very likely never be avoidable for all vehicle speeds due to physical limits. Scenarios with an unobstructed person walking will very likely be treatable for a wide speed range for next generation AEB systems.

  18. Applied gis software for improving pedestrian & bicycle safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. Ziari

    2005-08-01

    Full Text Available People are important in towns. They are the foundation of the social and economic processes that drive the urban system and sustain the urban fabric. While people spend much of their time inside buildings – at home, at work, and at play – it is the movement of people, whether in vehicles or on foot, that is indicative of the vibrancy of the town. Comfort and safety are important for people movement. The crash data in cities, provinces started with the Traffic Organization of Inner Ministry looking at access management controls on functionally classified streets. Safety is a driving factor in access management and the crash reports are the best indicator of the lack of safe roads. This paper presents the development and findings of crash data from police reports and how they are being used in Geographic Information System (GIS. This tool generates a contour map identifying areas of high crash occurrence determined by crash density and clusters of crashes involving pedestrians or bicyclists. Summary statistics of the selected zones can be generated and displayed in a table or chart form.

  19. EFFECT OF A ROAD SAFETY EDUCATION INTERVENTION ON ROAD SAFETY KNOWLEDGE OF UNIVERSITY DRIVERS IN IBADAN, NIGERIA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olumide, A O; Owoaje, E T

    2016-06-01

    It is essential for drivers employed in the formal sector to have good knowledge of road safety in order to safeguard their lives and those of the staff they are employed to drive. The study was conducted to determine the effect of a road safety education intervention on road safety knowledge of drivers employed in the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. A quasi-experimental study of 98 intervention and 78 control drivers selected using a cluster sampling technique was conducted. The intervention comprised a two-day training on road safety and first aid. The drivers' knowledge of road safety was measured at baseline, immediately and 4-months post-intervention. Aggregate scores of road safety knowledge were computed giving minimum and maximum obtainable scores of 0 and 16 respectively. Change in mean scores over the three measurement periods was assessed using Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Independent t-test was used to compare the scores between intervention and control drivers at each of the assessment periods. Twenty-nine drivers did not complete the study (attrition rate = 16.5%). At baseline, mean road safety knowledge scores for the intervention and control drivers were 12.7±2.2 and 12.9± 2.3 (p = 0.510) respectively. Immediately and four months post intervention, the scores of the intervention drivers were 13.8±1.9 and 12.8±1.6; while scores for the controls were 13.3±2.0 and 13.2±1.8. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that the increase in knowledge over the three assessment periods was not statistically significant. The intervention resulted in an initial increase in road safety knowledge of the intervention drivers. However, this was not sustained to the forth month post-intervention. This finding suggests periodic refresher trainings to sustain the knowledge acquired.

  20. Road safety issues for bus transport management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cafiso, Salvatore; Di Graziano, Alessandro; Pappalardo, Giuseppina

    2013-11-01

    Because of the low percentage of crashes involving buses and the assumption that public transport improves road safety by reducing vehicular traffic, public interest in bus safety is not as great as that in the safety of other types of vehicles. It is possible that less attention is paid to the significance of crashes involving buses because the safety level of bus systems is considered to be adequate. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and perceptions of bus managers with respect to safety issues and the potential effectiveness of various technologies in achieving higher safety standards. Bus managers were asked to give their opinions on safety issues related to drivers (training, skills, performance evaluation and behaviour), vehicles (maintenance and advanced devices) and roads (road and traffic safety issues) in response to a research survey. Kendall's algorithm was used to evaluate the level of concordance. The results showed that the majority of the proposed items were considered to have great potential for improving bus safety. The data indicated that in the experience of the participants, passenger unloading and pedestrians crossing near bus stops are the most dangerous actions with respect to vulnerable users. The final results of the investigation showed that start inhibition, automatic door opening, and the materials and internal architecture of buses were considered the items most strongly related to bus passenger safety. Brake assistance and vehicle monitoring systems were also considered to be very effective. With the exception of driver assistance systems for passenger and pedestrian safety, the perceptions of the importance of other driver assistance systems for vehicle monitoring and bus safety were not unanimous among the bus company managers who participated in this survey. The study results showed that the introduction of new technologies is perceived as an important factor in improving bus safety, but a better understanding

  1. Efficacy of virtual reality in pedestrian safety research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deb, Shuchisnigdha; Carruth, Daniel W; Sween, Richard; Strawderman, Lesley; Garrison, Teena M

    2017-11-01

    Advances in virtual reality technology present new opportunities for human factors research in areas that are dangerous, difficult, or expensive to study in the real world. The authors developed a new pedestrian simulator using the HTC Vive head mounted display and Unity software. Pedestrian head position and orientation were tracked as participants attempted to safely cross a virtual signalized intersection (5.5 m). In 10% of 60 trials, a vehicle violated the traffic signal and in 10.84% of these trials, a collision between the vehicle and the pedestrian was observed. Approximately 11% of the participants experienced simulator sickness and withdrew from the study. Objective measures, including the average walking speed, indicate that participant behavior in VR matches published real world norms. Subjective responses indicate that the virtual environment was realistic and engaging. Overall, the study results confirm the effectiveness of the new virtual reality technology for research on full motion tasks. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Survival in fatal road crashes: body mass index, gender, and safety belt use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sivak, Michael; Schoettle, Brandon; Rupp, Jonathan

    2010-02-01

    This study evaluated the associations of body mass index (BMI), gender, and use of safety belts with the survival of drivers involved in fatal road crashes. The census data of all U.S. fatal crashes that did not involve pedestrians, bicyclists, or motorcyclists were examined for an 11-year period. If involved in a crash with one or more fatalities, the odds of female drivers being among the fatalities are 1.28 times higher than those of male drivers, and the odds of unbelted drivers being among the fatalities are 5.43 times higher than those of belted drivers. The relationship of survivability to BMI depends on the gender and safety belt use of the driver. For male drivers, increased BMI appears beneficial when safety belts are used but detrimental when not used. For belted female drivers, normal BMI is associated with the lowest odds of being killed, and both increased and decreased BMIs increase the odds. For unbelted female drivers, no reliable trends were present among the BMI categories.

  3. Racial Bias in Drivers' Yielding Behavior at Crosswalks : Understanding the Effect

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-10-01

    This project explores social identity factors (race and gender) that influence drivers' behavior in interactions with pedestrians at crosswalks. One dangerous potential point of conflict for pedestrians within the transportation system is interaction...

  4. Investigation of pedestrian crashes on two-way two-lane rural roads in Ethiopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tulu, Getu Segni; Washington, Simon; Haque, Md Mazharul; King, Mark J

    2015-05-01

    Understanding pedestrian crash causes and contributing factors in developing countries is critically important as they account for about 55% of all traffic crashes. Not surprisingly, considerable attention in the literature has been paid to road traffic crash prediction models and methodologies in developing countries of late. Despite this interest, there are significant challenges confronting safety managers in developing countries. For example, in spite of the prominence of pedestrian crashes occurring on two-way two-lane rural roads, it has proven difficult to develop pedestrian crash prediction models due to a lack of both traffic and pedestrian exposure data. This general lack of available data has further hampered identification of pedestrian crash causes and subsequent estimation of pedestrian safety performance functions. The challenges are similar across developing nations, where little is known about the relationship between pedestrian crashes, traffic flow, and road environment variables on rural two-way roads, and where unique predictor variables may be needed to capture the unique crash risk circumstances. This paper describes pedestrian crash safety performance functions for two-way two-lane rural roads in Ethiopia as a function of traffic flow, pedestrian flows, and road geometry characteristics. In particular, random parameter negative binomial model was used to investigate pedestrian crashes. The models and their interpretations make important contributions to road crash analysis and prevention in developing countries. They also assist in the identification of the contributing factors to pedestrian crashes, with the intent to identify potential design and operational improvements. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  5. Distributed Pedestrian Detection Alerts Based on Data Fusion with Accurate Localization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arturo de la Escalera

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Among Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS pedestrian detection is a common issue due to the vulnerability of pedestrians in the event of accidents. In the present work, a novel approach for pedestrian detection based on data fusion is presented. Data fusion helps to overcome the limitations inherent to each detection system (computer vision and laser scanner and provides accurate and trustable tracking of any pedestrian movement. The application is complemented by an efficient communication protocol, able to alert vehicles in the surroundings by a fast and reliable communication. The combination of a powerful location, based on a GPS with inertial measurement, and accurate obstacle localization based on data fusion has allowed locating the detected pedestrians with high accuracy. Tests proved the viability of the detection system and the efficiency of the communication, even at long distances. By the use of the alert communication, dangerous situations such as occlusions or misdetections can be avoided.

  6. Distributed pedestrian detection alerts based on data fusion with accurate localization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    García, Fernando; Jiménez, Felipe; Anaya, José Javier; Armingol, José María; Naranjo, José Eugenio; de la Escalera, Arturo

    2013-09-04

    Among Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) pedestrian detection is a common issue due to the vulnerability of pedestrians in the event of accidents. In the present work, a novel approach for pedestrian detection based on data fusion is presented. Data fusion helps to overcome the limitations inherent to each detection system (computer vision and laser scanner) and provides accurate and trustable tracking of any pedestrian movement. The application is complemented by an efficient communication protocol, able to alert vehicles in the surroundings by a fast and reliable communication. The combination of a powerful location, based on a GPS with inertial measurement, and accurate obstacle localization based on data fusion has allowed locating the detected pedestrians with high accuracy. Tests proved the viability of the detection system and the efficiency of the communication, even at long distances. By the use of the alert communication, dangerous situations such as occlusions or misdetections can be avoided.

  7. Improving pedestrian facilities in congested urban areas: a case study of Chennai city

    Science.gov (United States)

    Subramanyam, B.; Prasanna Kumar, R.

    2017-07-01

    Traffic congestion and lack of public pedestrian space are some problems faced by most urban metropolises. Conventionally walking has been a mode of transportation in Indian cities. The percentage of pedestrians may vary from 16 to 57 depending upon the city. Encounters between vehicular traffic and pedestrian traffic are at its rise currently. Rapid industrialization and urbanization in India has resulted in neglecting of pedestrian facilities. Consequently pedestrian are at greater risk for their safety more especially in the commercial zones of large cities. A change in perspective spotlight will create a sense of awareness that the pedestrian traffic is also vital as the vehicular traffic. Soothing the traffic would moderately cut the driving expediency but the pedestrians will get a much safer and peaceful route to their terminuses. Safety and comfort are the two pans of a balance while considering the pedestrian traffic. Considering these aspects, this study deals a study in improving pedestrian facilities by analysing the existing skeleton of the selected locations. The adequacy of facility is checked based on IRC latest guidelines and counteractive measures are postulated.

  8. A study of pedestrian compliance with traffic signals for exclusive and concurrent phasing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ivan, John N; McKernan, Kevin; Zhang, Yaohua; Ravishanker, Nalini; Mamun, Sha A

    2017-01-01

    This paper describes a comparison of pedestrian compliance at traffic signals with two types of pedestrian phasing: concurrent, where both pedestrians and vehicular traffic are directed to move in the same directions at the same time, and exclusive, where pedestrians are directed to move during their own dedicated phase while all vehicular traffic is stopped. Exclusive phasing is usually perceived to be safer, especially by senior and disabled advocacy groups, although these safety benefits depend upon pedestrians waiting for the walk signal. This paper investigates whether or not there are differences between pedestrian compliance at signals with exclusive pedestrian phasing and those with concurrent phasing and whether these differences continue to exist when compliance at exclusive phasing signals is evaluated as if they had concurrent phasing. Pedestrian behavior was observed at 42 signalized intersections in central Connecticut with both concurrent and exclusive pedestrian phasing. Binary regression models were estimated to predict pedestrian compliance as a function of the pedestrian phasing type and other intersection characteristics, such as vehicular and pedestrian volume, crossing distance and speed limit. We found that pedestrian compliance is significantly higher at intersections with concurrent pedestrian phasing than at those with exclusive pedestrian phasing, but this difference is not significant when compliance at exclusive phase intersections is evaluated as if it had concurrent phasing. This suggests that pedestrians treat exclusive phase intersections as though they have concurrent phasing, rendering the safety benefits of exclusive pedestrian phasing elusive. No differences were observed for senior or non-senior pedestrians. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  9. Cognitive functioning differentially predicts different dimensions of older drivers' on-road safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aksan, Nazan; Anderson, Steve W; Dawson, Jeffrey; Uc, Ergun; Rizzo, Matthew

    2015-02-01

    The extent to which deficits in specific cognitive domains contribute to older drivers' safety risk in complex real-world driving tasks is not well understood. We selected 148 drivers older than 70 years of age both with and without neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer disease-AD and Parkinson disease-PD) from an existing driving database of older adults. Participant assessments included on-road driving safety and cognitive functioning in visuospatial construction, speed of processing, memory, and executive functioning. The standardized on-road drive test was designed to examine multiple facets of older driver safety including navigation performance (e.g., following a route, identifying landmarks), safety errors while concurrently performing secondary navigation tasks ("on-task" safety errors), and safety errors in the absence of any secondary navigation tasks ("baseline" safety errors). The inter-correlations of these outcome measures were fair to moderate supporting their distinctiveness. Participants with diseases performed worse than the healthy aging group on all driving measures and differences between those with AD and PD were minimal. In multivariate analyses, different domains of cognitive functioning predicted distinct facets of driver safety on road. Memory and set-shifting predicted performance in navigation-related secondary tasks, speed of processing predicted on-task safety errors, and visuospatial construction predicted baseline safety errors. These findings support broad assessments of cognitive functioning to inform decisions regarding older driver safety on the road and suggest navigation performance may be useful in evaluating older driver fitness and restrictions in licensing. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. The driver, the road, the rules … and the rest? A systems-based approach to young driver road safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott-Parker, B; Goode, N; Salmon, P

    2015-01-01

    The persistent overrepresentation of young drivers in road crashes is universally recognised. A multitude of factors influencing their behaviour and safety have been identified through methods including crash analyses, simulated and naturalistic driving studies, and self-report measures. Across the globe numerous, diverse, countermeasures have been implemented; the design of the vast majority of these has been informed by a driver-centric approach. An alternative approach gaining popularity in transport safety is the systems approach which considers not only the characteristics of the individual, but also the decisions and actions of other actors within the road transport system, along with the interactions amongst them. This paper argues that for substantial improvements to be made in young driver road safety, what has been learnt from driver-centric research needs to be integrated into a systems approach, thus providing a holistic appraisal of the young driver road safety problem. Only then will more effective opportunities and avenues for intervention be realised. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Pedestrian injury risk and the effect of age.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niebuhr, Tobias; Junge, Mirko; Rosén, Erik

    2016-01-01

    Older adults and pedestrians both represent especially vulnerable groups in traffic. In the literature, hazards are usually described by the corresponding injury risks of a collision. This paper investigates the MAIS3+F risk (the risk of sustaining at least one injury of AIS 3 severity or higher, or fatal injury) for pedestrians in full-frontal pedestrian-to-passenger car collisions. Using some assumptions, a model-based approach to injury risk, allowing for the specification of individual injury risk parameters for individuals, is presented. To balance model accuracy and sample size, the GIDAS (German In-depth Accident Study) data set is divided into three age groups; children (0-14); adults (15-60); and older adults (older than 60). For each group, individual risk curves are computed. Afterwards, the curves are re-aggregated to the overall risk function. The derived model addresses the influence of age on the outcome of pedestrian-to-car accidents. The results show that older people compared with younger people have a higher MAIS3+F injury risk at all collision speeds. The injury risk for children behaves surprisingly. Compared to other age groups, their MAIS3+F injury risk is lower at lower collision speeds, but substantially higher once a threshold has been exceeded. The resulting injury risk curve obtained by re-aggregation looks surprisingly similar to the frequently used logistic regression function computed for the overall injury risk. However, for homogenous subgroups - such as the three age groups - logistic regression describes the typical risk behavior less accurately than the introduced model-based approach. Since the effect of demographic change on traffic safety is greater nowadays, there is a need to incorporate age into established models. Thus far, this is one of the first studies incorporating traffic participant age to an explicit risk function. The presented approach can be especially useful for the modeling and prediction of risks, and for the

  12. Change detection in urban and rural driving scenes: Effects of target type and safety relevance on change blindness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beanland, Vanessa; Filtness, Ashleigh J; Jeans, Rhiannon

    2017-03-01

    The ability to detect changes is crucial for safe driving. Previous research has demonstrated that drivers often experience change blindness, which refers to failed or delayed change detection. The current study explored how susceptibility to change blindness varies as a function of the driving environment, type of object changed, and safety relevance of the change. Twenty-six fully-licenced drivers completed a driving-related change detection task. Changes occurred to seven target objects (road signs, cars, motorcycles, traffic lights, pedestrians, animals, or roadside trees) across two environments (urban or rural). The contextual safety relevance of the change was systematically manipulated within each object category, ranging from high safety relevance (i.e., requiring a response by the driver) to low safety relevance (i.e., requiring no response). When viewing rural scenes, compared with urban scenes, participants were significantly faster and more accurate at detecting changes, and were less susceptible to "looked-but-failed-to-see" errors. Interestingly, safety relevance of the change differentially affected performance in urban and rural environments. In urban scenes, participants were more efficient at detecting changes with higher safety relevance, whereas in rural scenes the effect of safety relevance has marginal to no effect on change detection. Finally, even after accounting for safety relevance, change blindness varied significantly between target types. Overall the results suggest that drivers are less susceptible to change blindness for objects that are likely to change or move (e.g., traffic lights vs. road signs), and for moving objects that pose greater danger (e.g., wild animals vs. pedestrians). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Modeling pedestrian gap crossing index under mixed traffic condition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naser, Mohamed M; Zulkiple, Adnan; Al Bargi, Walid A; Khalifa, Nasradeen A; Daniel, Basil David

    2017-12-01

    There are a variety of challenges faced by pedestrians when they walk along and attempt to cross a road, as the most recorded accidents occur during this time. Pedestrians of all types, including both sexes with numerous aging groups, are always subjected to risk and are characterized as the most exposed road users. The increased demand for better traffic management strategies to reduce the risks at intersections, improve quality traffic management, traffic volume, and longer cycle time has further increased concerns over the past decade. This paper aims to develop a sustainable pedestrian gap crossing index model based on traffic flow density. It focusses on the gaps accepted by pedestrians and their decision for street crossing, where (Log-Gap) logarithm of accepted gaps was used to optimize the result of a model for gap crossing behavior. Through a review of extant literature, 15 influential variables were extracted for further empirical analysis. Subsequently, data from the observation at an uncontrolled mid-block in Jalan Ampang in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was gathered and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) and Binary Logit Model (BLM) techniques were employed to analyze the results. From the results, different pedestrian behavioral characteristics were considered for a minimum gap size model, out of which only a few (four) variables could explain the pedestrian road crossing behavior while the remaining variables have an insignificant effect. Among the different variables, age, rolling gap, vehicle type, and crossing were the most influential variables. The study concludes that pedestrians' decision to cross the street depends on the pedestrian age, rolling gap, vehicle type, and size of traffic gap before crossing. The inferences from these models will be useful to increase pedestrian safety and performance evaluation of uncontrolled midblock road crossings in developing countries. Copyright © 2017 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Automated and connected vehicle (AV/CV) test bed to improve transit, bicycle, and pedestrian safety : concept of operations plan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-02-01

    This document presents the Concept of Operations (ConOps) Plan for the Automated and Connected Vehicle (AV/CV) Test Bed to Improve Transit, Bicycle, and Pedestrian Safety. As illustrated in Figure 1, the plan presents the overarching vision and goals...

  15. Measuring accident risk exposure for pedestrians in different micro-environments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lassarre, Sylvain; Papadimitriou, Eleonora; Yannis, George; Golias, John

    2007-11-01

    Pedestrians are mainly exposed to the risk of road accident when crossing a road in urban areas. Traditionally in the road safety field, the risk of accident for pedestrian is estimated as a rate of accident involvement per unit of time spent on the road network. The objective of this research is to develop an approach of accident risk based on the concept of risk exposure used in environmental epidemiology, such as in the case of exposure to pollutants. This type of indicator would be useful for comparing the effects of urban transportation policy scenarios on pedestrian safety. The first step is to create an indicator of pedestrians' exposure, which is based on motorised vehicles' "concentration" by lane and also takes account of traffic speed and time spent to cross. This is applied to two specific micro-environments: junctions and mid-block locations. A model of pedestrians' crossing behaviour along a trip is then developed, based on a hierarchical choice between junctions and mid-block locations and taking account of origin and destination, traffic characteristics and pedestrian facilities. Finally, a complete framework is produced for modelling pedestrians' exposure in the light of their crossing behaviour. The feasibility of this approach is demonstrated on an artificial network and a first set of results is obtained from the validation of the models in observational studies.

  16. Effects of Countdown Signals in Red Phase on Drivers: A Comparative Study between Japan and Turkey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ke Yu

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Countdown signals can be found in many countries; however, there are only a few researches that study the impact of the signals on driver behavior. In this study, we focus particularly on the behavior of drivers reacting to countdown signals when the signal shifted from red to green. Although the countdown signal can reduce startup delay, it also causes drivers premature start. This paper determines the factors influencing the behaviors of drivers on startup delay, premature start, and headway due to countdown signals. The analysis results are compared between Japan and Turkey. From our findings, we propose countermeasures to reduce the problems caused by the countdown signals which can be a guideline for implementation or modification of countdown-signalized intersections in many countries in order to increase safety of both drivers and pedestrians as well as drivers’ satisfactions.

  17. PILOT RESULTS ON FORWARD COLLISION WARNING SYSTEM EFFECTIVENESS IN OLDER DRIVERS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lester, Benjamin D; Sager, Lauren N; Dawson, Jeffrey; Hacker, Sarah D; Aksan, Nazan; Rizzo, Matthew; Kitazaki, Satoshi

    2015-06-01

    Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) have largely been developed with a "one-size-fits-all" approach. This approach neglects the large inter-individual variability in perceptual and cognitive abilities that affect aging ADAS users. We investigated the effectiveness of a forward collision warning (FCW) with fixed response parameters in young and older drivers with differing levels of cognitive functioning. Drivers responded to a pedestrian stepping into the driver's path on a simulated urban road. Behavioral metrics included response times (RT) for pedal controls and two indices of risk penetration (e.g., maximum deceleration and minimum time-to-collision (TTC)). Older drivers showed significantly slower responses at several time points compared to younger drivers. The FCW facilitated response times (RTs) for older and younger drivers. However, older drivers still showed smaller safety gains compared to younger drivers at accelerator pedal release and initial brake application when the FCW was active. No significant differences in risk metrics were observed within the condition studied. The results demonstrate older drivers likely differ from younger drivers using a FCW with a fixed parameter set. Finally, we briefly discuss how future research should examine predictive relationships between domains of cognitive functioning and ADAS responses to develop parameter sets to fit the individual.

  18. Development of Statewide Guidelines for Implementing Leading Pedestrian Intervals in Florida

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-12-01

    Pedestrian safety is an ongoing major concern throughout the United States and is one of the highest priorities for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). Vehicles often fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections, especially when pedestr...

  19. Influence of children pedestrian behaviour on pedestrian space usage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Makalew, F. P.; Adisasmita, S. A.; Wunas, S.; Hamid, S.

    2017-11-01

    School children pedestrian behaviour can be seen along their journey to and from school. Pedestrian spaces used by children are places available in urban and rural areas including streets with and without pedestrian pathways. Samples data are collected from 23 elementary schools in urban and rural areas in North Sulawesi, Indonesia in the form of video records and photos taken. The aim of this research is to analyse children pedestrian behaviour and its influence on the space usage on pedestrian areas. Method of analysis is a comparative study on urban and rural areas. Results of this research are types of behaviour, factors that influence the behaviour, physical condition of pedestrian areas and space usage by children. The behaviours are duck-line walking, running, playing, walking backward and walking with bare foot in which running is the main behaviour. These behaviours are influenced by factors including following friends and responding to acts. There are similarities and differences between pedestrian space usage in urban and rural areas. Space use by children pedestrian demonstrates the way pedestrian areas should be planned. Space usage by children pedestrian indicates that there is a need of evaluation of the space available considering pedestrian children behaviour.

  20. Estimating the value of life and injury for pedestrians using a stated preference framework.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niroomand, Naghmeh; Jenkins, Glenn P

    2017-09-01

    The incidence of pedestrian death over the period 2010 to 2014 per 1000,000 in North Cyprus is about 2.5 times that of the EU, with 10.5 times more pedestrian road injuries than deaths. With the prospect of North Cyprus entering the EU, many investments need to be undertaken to improve road safety in order to reach EU benchmarks. We conducted a stated choice experiment to identify the preferences and tradeoffs of pedestrians in North Cyprus for improved walking times, pedestrian costs, and safety. The choice of route was examined using mixed logit models to obtain the marginal utilities associated with each attribute of the routes that consumers chose. These were used to estimate the individuals' willingness to pay (WTP) to save walking time and to avoid pedestrian fatalities and injuries. We then used the results to obtain community-wide estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL) saved, the value of an injury (VI) prevented, and the value per hour of walking time saved. The estimate of the VSL was €699,434 and the estimate of VI was €20,077. These values are consistent, after adjusting for differences in incomes, with the median results of similar studies done for EU countries. The estimated value of time to pedestrians is €7.20 per person hour. The ratio of deaths to injuries is much higher for pedestrians than for road accidents, and this is completely consistent with the higher estimated WTP to avoid a pedestrian accident than to avoid a car accident. The value of time of €7.20 is quite high relative to the wages earned. Findings provide a set of information on the VRR for fatalities and injuries and the value of pedestrian time that is critical for conducing ex ante appraisals of investments to improve pedestrian safety. Copyright © 2017 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. A Review of Interventions To Increase Driving Safety among Teenage Drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mattox, John R., II

    Young drivers across the United States represent a persistent traffic safety problem. Many interventions have been imposed on these drivers but few studies have evaluated the impact of these interventions on risky behaviors or traffic safety measures. To fill this gap, a review was undertaken to examine the most rigorous methodological evaluations…

  2. Motivating signage prompts safety belt use among drivers exiting senior communities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cox, B S; Cox, A B; Cox, D J

    2000-01-01

    Senior drivers are vulnerable to automobile crashes and subsequent injury and death. Safety belts reduce health risks associated with auto crashes. Therefore, it is important to encourage senior drivers to wear safety belts while driving. Using an AB design, replicated five times, we evaluated the short- and long-term effects of a sign with the message "BUCKLE UP, STAY SAFE" attached to a stop sign at the exits of five different senior communities. Safety belt use was stable during two pretreatment assessments averaged across the five sites and 250 drivers (72% and 68% usage), but significantly increased following installation of these signs (94% usage). Six months after installation of the signs, the effect persisted (88% usage). Use of such signs may be a cost-effective way of promoting safety belt use.

  3. Road safety campaign is a great success

    CERN Multimedia

    2008-01-01

    Rolf Heuer, the next Director-General of CERN, and Sigurd Lettow, the Director of Finance and Human Resources (photo below), completed all the tests of the CERN road safety campaign under the supervision of TCS instructors. The road safety campaign, which took place in the Main Building during the week of 10 November, attracted large numbers of participants. More than 300 CERN personnel and users took part in, and in some cases were literally bowled over by, the activities set up by instructors from the TCS (Touring Club Suisse). The campaign’s aim was to raise driver awareness of several aspects of road safety, including speed, use of mobile phones at the wheel, pedestrian priority, unlawful parking and driving with a valid licence. The campaign was an unqualified success! Even CERN’s directors joined in, testing their own reactions as drivers on the various pieces of apparatus in place.

  4. Psychological distance of pedestrian at the bus terminal area

    Science.gov (United States)

    Firdaus Mohamad Ali, Mohd; Salleh Abustan, Muhamad; Hidayah Abu Talib, Siti; Abustan, Ismail; Rahman, Noorhazlinda Abd; Gotoh, Hitoshi

    2018-03-01

    Walking is a part of transportation modes that is effective for pedestrian in either short or long trips. All people are classified as pedestrian because people do walk every day and the higher number of people walking will lead to crowd conditions and that is the reason of the importance to study about the behaviour of pedestrian specifically the psychological distance in both indoor and outdoor. Nowadays, the number of studies of crowd dynamics among pedestrian have increased due to the concern about the safety issues primarily related to the emergency cases such as fire, earthquake, festival and etc. An observation of pedestrian was conducted at one of the main bus terminals in Kuala Lumpur with the main objective to obtain pedestrian psychological distance and it took place for 45 minutes by using a camcorder that was set up by using a tripod on the upper floor from the area of observation at the main lobby and the trapped area was approximately 100 m2. The analysis was focused on obtaining the gap between pedestrian based on two different categories, which are; (a) Pedestrian with relationship, and (b) Pedestrian without relationship. In total, 1,766 data were obtained during the analysis in which 561 data were obtained for `Pedestrian with relationship' and 1,205 data were obtained for "Pedestrian without relationship". Based on the obtained results, "Pedestrian without relationship" had shown a slightly higher average value of psychological distance between them compare to "Pedestrian with relationship" with the results of 1.6360m and 1.5909m respectively. In gender case, "Pedestrian without relationship" had higher mean of psychological distance in all three categories as well. Therefore, it can be concluded that pedestrian without relationship tend to have longer distance when walking in crowds.

  5. Auditory detectability of hybrid electric vehicles by pedestrians who are blind

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-11-15

    Quieter cars such as electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) may reduce auditory cues used by pedestrians to assess the state of nearby traffic and, as a result, their use may have an adverse impact on pedestrian safety. In order ...

  6. Vehicle-pedestrian collisions - Aspects regarding pedestrian kinematics, dynamics and biomechanics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petrescu, L.; Petrescu, Al

    2017-10-01

    Vehicle-pedestrian collisions result in a substantial number of pedestrian fatalities and injuries worldwide. Concern continues to limit and reduce the tragic consequences suffered by pedestrians involved in road accidents, caused the vehicle-pedestrian accident reconstruction become an important area and distinctly outlined in the reconstruction of road incidents involving vehicle. This paper analyzes the dynamics of vehicle-pedestrian impact influence over pedestrian biomechanics, which is directly connected with the severity of injury after contact with the vehicle profile and with the place where the pedestrian is projected. The main goal of this paper is to highlight some features of reconstruction of road accidents involving pedestrian, looking at the kinematics and dynamics of pedestrian impact for a better understanding of the phenomena that occur. The study on the dynamics and biomechanics of the pedestrian hit by the vehicle is useful in order to understand how the injuries, including the lethal ones, are generated in the collision, what is essential in road accidents reconstruction.

  7. Development of Statewide Guidelines for Implementing Leading Pedestrian Intervals in Florida [Summary

    Science.gov (United States)

    2018-02-01

    Pedestrian safety is always a high priority for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), especially as FDOT moves Florida toward a truly multimodal transportation system. Intersections are where vehicles and pedestrians are most likely to int...

  8. Pedestrian-motorcycle collisions: associated risks and issues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ariffin Aqbal Hafeez

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available From the statistics, there are serious concerns over the relatively high number of fatal motor vehicle crashes involving pedestrianmotorcycle in Malaysia. The high number of motorcycle registration on road, compounded by its popularity as the major mode of transportation in the nation, imposes safety risk to pedestrians, as well as to other road users. Data from 1,626 related road crashes of Royal Malaysia Police (RMP for the 2009-2013 period were retrospectively collected via MIROS Road Accident Analysis and Database System (M-ROADS. The data were then analyzed via logistic regression method to determine associations between risks and injury severity in pedestrian-motorcycle collisions. The results indicate that five factors were significantly related to injury severity, which include age, location of body injury, as well as speed limit, road geometry and lighting condition of collision site. Subsequently, focus group discussions with stakeholders were also conducted to gather relevant data to identify related issues and suggestions on motorcycle safety technology with regards to collision with pedestrian.

  9. Assessment methodologies for forward looking integrated pedestrian systems and further extension to cyclist safety: experimental and virtual testing for pedestrian protection

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ferrer, A.; Hair-Buijssen, S.H.H.M. de; Zander, O.; Fredriksson, R.; Schaub, S.; Nuss, F.; Caspar, M.

    2015-01-01

    Pedestrians and cyclists are the most unprotected road users and their injury risk in case of accidents is significantly higher than for other road users. The understanding of the influence and sensitivity between important variables describing a pedestrian crash is key for the development of more

  10. Does assisted driving behavior lead to safety-critical encounters with unequipped vehicles' drivers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Preuk, Katharina; Stemmler, Eric; Schießl, Caroline; Jipp, Meike

    2016-10-01

    With Intelligent Transport Systems (e.g., traffic light assistance systems) assisted drivers are able to show driving behavior in anticipation of upcoming traffic situations. In the years to come, the penetration rate of such systems will be low. Therefore, the majority of vehicles will not be equipped with these systems. Unequipped vehicles' drivers may not expect the driving behavior of assisted drivers. However, drivers' predictions and expectations can play a significant role in their reaction times. Thus, safety issues could arise when unequipped vehicles' drivers encounter driving behavior of assisted drivers. This is why we tested how unequipped vehicles' drivers (N=60) interpreted and reacted to the driving behavior of an assisted driver. We used a multi-driver simulator with three drivers. The three drivers were driving in a line. The lead driver in the line was a confederate who was followed by two unequipped vehicles' drivers. We varied the equipment of the confederate with an Intelligent Transport System: The confederate was equipped either with or without a traffic light assistance system. The traffic light assistance system provided a start-up maneuver before a light turned green. Therefore, the assisted confederate seemed to show unusual deceleration behavior by coming to a halt at an unusual distance from the stop line at the red traffic light. The unusual distance was varied as we tested a moderate (4m distance from the stop line) and an extreme (10m distance from the stop line) parameterization of the system. Our results showed that the extreme parametrization resulted in shorter minimal time-to-collision of the unequipped vehicles' drivers. One rear-end crash was observed. These results provided initial evidence that safety issues can arise when unequipped vehicles' drivers encounter assisted driving behavior. We recommend that future research identifies counteractions to prevent these safety issues. Moreover, we recommend that system developers

  11. Methodology for assessing the lighting of pedestrian crossings based on light intensity parameters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomczuk Piotr

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available One of the possible preventive measures that could improve safety at crossings is to assess the state of illumination of the lighting installation located in the transition area for pedestrians. The City of Warsaw has undertaken to comprehensively assess the pedestrian crossings to determine the level of road safety and the condition of lighting. The lighting conditions related to pedestrian crossings without traffic lights in three central districts of the city were investigated. The conducted field research and the work of the team of experts lead to the development of tools to assess the level of risk due to the lighting conditions measured at night. The newly developed and used method of assessment and the experience gained should provide a valuable contribution to the development of uniform risk assessment rules for pedestrian crossings in Poland. The authors of this paper have attempted to systematize the description of the method of evaluation of the lighting installed in the area of pedestrian crossings.

  12. Relationships amongst psychological determinants, risk behaviour, and road crashes of young adolescent pedestrians and cyclists : implications for road safety education programmes.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Twisk, D.A.M. Commandeur, J.J.F. Vlakveld, W.P. Shope, J.T. & Kok, G.

    2015-01-01

    Road safety education (RSE) assumes that psychological determinants predict risk behaviour, and subsequently that risky road behaviour predicts crash involvement. This study examined the validity of this assumption, by analysing these relationships in two age groups of teen cyclists and pedestrians:

  13. Relationships among psychological determinants, risk behaviour, and road crashes of young adolescent pedestrians and cyclists: Implications for road safety education programmes

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Twisk, D.A.M; Commandeur, J.J.F.; Vlakveld, W.P.; Shope, J.T.; Kok, G.

    2015-01-01

    Road safety education (RSE) assumes that psychological determinants predict risk behaviour, and subsequently that risky road behaviour predicts crash involvement. This study examined the validity of this assumption, by analysing these relationships in two age groups of teen cyclists and pedestrians:

  14. 78 FR 29431 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-05-20

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print the...

  15. 78 FR 34141 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-06-06

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print the...

  16. 78 FR 41188 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-07-09

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print the...

  17. 77 FR 10608 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-02-22

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... you want acknowledgement that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped...

  18. Neighborhood Influences on Vehicle-Pedestrian Crash Severity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toran Pour, Alireza; Moridpour, Sara; Tay, Richard; Rajabifard, Abbas

    2017-12-01

    Socioeconomic factors are known to be contributing factors for vehicle-pedestrian crashes. Although several studies have examined the socioeconomic factors related to the location of the crashes, limited studies have considered the socioeconomic factors of the neighborhood where the road users live in vehicle-pedestrian crash modelling. This research aims to identify the socioeconomic factors related to both the neighborhoods where the road users live and where crashes occur that have an influence on vehicle-pedestrian crash severity. Data on vehicle-pedestrian crashes that occurred at mid-blocks in Melbourne, Australia, was analyzed. Neighborhood factors associated with road users' residents and location of crash were investigated using boosted regression tree (BRT). Furthermore, partial dependence plots were applied to illustrate the interactions between these factors. We found that socioeconomic factors accounted for 60% of the 20 top contributing factors to vehicle-pedestrian crashes. This research reveals that socioeconomic factors of the neighborhoods where the road users live and where the crashes occur are important in determining the severity of the crashes, with the former having a greater influence. Hence, road safety countermeasures, especially those focussing on the road users, should be targeted at these high-risk neighborhoods.

  19. Transport company safety climate - the impact on truck driver behaviour and crash involvement

    OpenAIRE

    Sullman, Mark J. M.; Stephens A. N.; Pajo K.

    2017-01-01

    Objective: The present study investigated the relationships between safety climate and driving behavior and crash involvement. Methods: A total of 339 company-employed truck drivers completed a questionnaire that measured their perceptions of safety climate, crash record, speed choice, and aberrant driving behaviors (errors, lapses, and violations). Results: Although there was no direct relationship between the drivers' perceptions of safety climate and crash involvement, safety clima...

  20. 78 FR 37274 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-06-20

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print...

  1. 77 FR 31427 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-05-25

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print...

  2. 77 FR 71669 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-12-03

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print...

  3. 77 FR 44708 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-07-30

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print...

  4. 78 FR 56986 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-09-16

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print...

  5. 77 FR 33558 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-06-06

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... qualification file if he/she is self-employed. The driver must have a copy of the certification when driving... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print...

  6. Substance use and social, health and safety-related factors among fatally injured drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karjalainen, Karoliina; Blencowe, Tom; Lillsunde, Pirjo

    2012-03-01

    The aim of this study was to examine different socio-demographic, health and safety-related factors, and psychoactive substance use among fatally injured drivers in road traffic accidents in Finland during 2006-2008. An accident information register maintained by the Traffic Safety Committee of Insurance Companies (VALT) of the Finnish Motor Insurers' Centre was used as basic data, and the basic data were complemented with further toxicological analytical information retrieved from autopsy reports from the Department of Forensic Medicine, Helsinki University. The data included all the drivers (n=556) who were driving a motor vehicle and who died in a road traffic accident in Finland during 2006-2008. Of all the 556 fatally injured drivers 43% (n=238) had psychoactive substance findings. 51% (n=121) of substance positive drivers had a finding for alcohol only, the rest had a finding for one or more illicit/medicinal drugs impairing driving ability, and possibly also alcohol. Fatally injured drivers with alcohol findings were significantly younger (mean age 34 years) than sober drivers (mean age 44 years) or drivers with findings for drugs (mean age 45 years). Socio-demographic background did not differ substantially among drunken/drugged and sober drivers, although drivers with alcohol findings had a slightly lower education and socioeconomic position. Previous substance abuse problems were highly prevalent among drivers with substance findings and mental or both mental and physical health problems were more common among drivers with drug findings. The non-use of safety equipment and driving at a high speed were more common among fatally injured drivers with substance findings. Substance abuse and mental health problems, as well as reckless driving behavior were more pronounced among fatally injured drivers with substance findings when compared to sober drivers. Thus, prevention and early intervention concerning substance abuse, mental health problems and DUI are

  7. Recognizing pedestrian's unsafe behaviors in far-infrared imagery at night

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Eun Ju; Ko, Byoung Chul; Nam, Jae-Yeal

    2016-05-01

    Pedestrian behavior recognition is important work for early accident prevention in advanced driver assistance system (ADAS). In particular, because most pedestrian-vehicle crashes are occurred from late of night to early of dawn, our study focus on recognizing unsafe behavior of pedestrians using thermal image captured from moving vehicle at night. For recognizing unsafe behavior, this study uses convolutional neural network (CNN) which shows high quality of recognition performance. However, because traditional CNN requires the very expensive training time and memory, we design the light CNN consisted of two convolutional layers and two subsampling layers for real-time processing of vehicle applications. In addition, we combine light CNN with boosted random forest (Boosted RF) classifier so that the output of CNN is not fully connected with the classifier but randomly connected with Boosted random forest. We named this CNN as randomly connected CNN (RC-CNN). The proposed method was successfully applied to the pedestrian unsafe behavior (PUB) dataset captured from far-infrared camera at night and its behavior recognition accuracy is confirmed to be higher than that of some algorithms related to CNNs, with a shorter processing time.

  8. Conditions that influence drivers' yielding behavior at uncontrolled crossings and intersections with traffic signal controls.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-08-31

    There is a dearth of studies on how pedestrian who are blind might positively influence driver yielding in different travel situations. This project assessed common pedestrian behaviors (head turning, holding a cane, taking a step, holding up a hand,...

  9. Urban planning, traffic planning and traffic safety of pedestrians and cyclists : report presented to the 1979 Road Research Symposium on Safety of Pedestrians and Cyclists, OECD Headquarters, Paris, 14-16 May 1979. Session III: Physical Countermeasures; Subsession III.1: Urban planning and traffic planning.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wegman, F.C.M.

    1979-01-01

    The traffic safety of pedestrians and cyclists can be improved by means of urban planning and traffic planning, as one of the possibilities. This paper discusses the framework of these measures and activities and also the effects on the field of traffic planning. Chapter I show that it is not

  10. Usability and Feasibility of an Internet-Based Virtual Pedestrian Environment to Teach Children to Cross Streets Safely

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwebel, David C.; McClure, Leslie A.; Severson, Joan

    2013-01-01

    Child pedestrian injury is a preventable global health challenge. Successful training efforts focused on child behavior, including individualized streetside training and training in large virtual pedestrian environments, are laborious and expensive. This study considers the usability and feasibility of a virtual pedestrian environment “game” application to teach children safe street-crossing behavior via the internet, a medium that could be broadly disseminated at low cost. Ten 7- and 8-year-old children participated. They engaged in an internet-based virtual pedestrian environment and completed a brief assessment survey. Researchers rated children's behavior while engaged in the game. Both self-report and researcher observations indicated the internet-based system was readily used by the children without adult support. The youth understood how to engage in the system and used it independently and attentively. The program also was feasible. It provided multiple measures of pedestrian safety that could be used for research or training purposes. Finally, the program was rated by children as engaging and educational. Researcher ratings suggested children used the program with minimal fidgeting or boredom. The pilot test suggests an internet-based virtual pedestrian environment offers a usable, feasible, engaging, and educational environment for child pedestrian safety training. If future research finds children learn the cognitive and perceptual skills needed to cross streets safely within it, internet-based training may provide a low-cost medium to broadly disseminate child pedestrian safety training. The concept may be generalized to other domains of health-related functioning such as teen driving safety, adolescent sexual risk-taking, and adolescent substance use. PMID:24678263

  11. Safety climate and the distracted driving experiences of truck drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swedler, David I; Pollack, Keshia M; Agnew, Jacqueline

    2015-07-01

    For truck drivers, distracted driving is a workplace behavior that increases occupational injury risk. We propose safety climate as an appropriate lens through which researchers can examine occupational distracted driving. Using a mixed methods study design, we surveyed truck drivers using the Safety Climate Questionnaire (SCQ) complemented by semi-structured interviews of experts on distracted driving and truck safety. Safety climate was assessed by using the entire SCQ as an overall climate score, followed by factor analysis that identified the following safety climate factors: Communications and Procedures; Management Commitment; and Work Pressure. In multivariate regression, the overall safety climate scale was associated with having ever experienced a crash and/or distraction-involved swerving. Interview participants described how these SCQ constructs could affect occupational distracted driving. To reduce distraction-related crashes in their organizations, management can adhere to safe policies and procedures, invest in engineering controls, and develop safer communication procedures. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  12. The Study on In-City Capacity Affected by Pedestrian Crossing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chang-jiang Zheng

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Currently, the urban road traffic congestion is serious and the traffic accident is happening at a high frequency; thus it has not satisfied the travel needs of security and affects the quality of urban trips. In order to effectively relieve the confliction of people and motor vehicle, to make sure of the safety of pedestrians crossing the road, and to improve the capacity of urban roads, this passage focuses on studying the influence of pedestrians crossing the roads on the capacity of urban roads in three pedestrian crossing approaches including freely crossing the street, uncontrolled crossing of the pedestrian crosswalk, and controlled crossing of the pedestrian crosswalk. Firstly, it confirms the general formula of the road capacity when pedestrians are crossing the road based on three preassumptions, combined with the survey data, and then constructs the empirical mathematical model of pedestrian crossing on the capacity impact. Lastly, it takes the step of case calculation and simulation evaluation and calculates errors between them, finding that the error between the model calculation and software simulation is small. The efficiency of the model is validated and improved.

  13. Evaluation of geometrically personalized THUMS pedestrian model response against sedan-pedestrian PMHS impact test data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Huipeng; Poulard, David; Forman, Jason; Crandall, Jeff; Panzer, Matthew B

    2018-07-04

    Evaluating the biofidelity of pedestrian finite element models (PFEM) using postmortem human subjects (PMHS) is a challenge because differences in anthropometry between PMHS and PFEM could limit a model's capability to accurately capture cadaveric responses. Geometrical personalization via morphing can modify the PFEM geometry to match the specific PMHS anthropometry, which could alleviate this issue. In this study, the Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) PFEM (Ver 4.01) was compared to the cadaveric response in vehicle-pedestrian impacts using geometrically personalized models. The AM50 THUMS PFEM was used as the baseline model, and 2 morphed PFEM were created to the anthropometric specifications of 2 obese PMHS used in a previous pedestrian impact study with a mid-size sedan. The same measurements as those obtained during the PMHS tests were calculated from the simulations (kinematics, accelerations, strains), and biofidelity metrics based on signals correlation (correlation and analysis, CORA) were established to compare the response of the models to the experiments. Injury outcomes were predicted deterministically (through strain-based threshold) and probabilistically (with injury risk functions) and compared with the injuries reported in the necropsy. The baseline model could not accurately capture all aspects of the PMHS kinematics, strain, and injury risks, whereas the morphed models reproduced biofidelic response in terms of trajectory (CORA score = 0.927 ± 0.092), velocities (0.975 ± 0.027), accelerations (0.862 ± 0.072), and strains (0.707 ± 0.143). The personalized THUMS models also generally predicted injuries consistent with those identified during posttest autopsy. The study highlights the need to control for pedestrian anthropometry when validating pedestrian human body models against PMHS data. The information provided in the current study could be useful for improving model biofidelity for vehicle-pedestrian impact scenarios.

  14. Isolated and Single Pedestrians and Pedestrian Groups on Sidewalks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Francesco Pinna

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Walking freedom can define the quality of an urban area, but this freedom is conditioned by various factors. The research objective is to study pedestrian behavior on sidewalks. Data are collected during on site surveys by means of concealed camcorders. For each pedestrian many factors are observed, such as gender, age, direction, distractions, transport of objects, etc., which could influence pedestrian behavior. Data processing allows the identification of mathematical models describing the average pedestrian’s behavior, subdivided for user type (isolated, single, group. In general, the mean walking pedestrian speed decreases depending on user type (in a linear manner if age class grows for isolated pedestrians, while with the square of age for other user types, of gender, and of facing type. Models obtained for the different pedestrian types were compared to understand the differences in speeds, underlining that pedestrian interferences play a significant role in defining behavior and, therefore, speed. The results support the idea that, to define a smooth pedestrian speed as an indicator of the “walkability” of a path, in addition to considering the path and user’s characteristics, it is also necessary to define the type of user for which the infrastructure is designed.

  15. Exploring the mechanisms of vehicle front-end shape on pedestrian head injuries caused by ground impact.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yin, Sha; Li, Jiani; Xu, Jun

    2017-09-01

    In pedestrian-vehicle accidents, pedestrians typically suffer from secondary impact with the ground after the primary contact with vehicles. However, information about the fundamental mechanism of pedestrian head injury from ground impact remains minimal, thereby hindering further improvement in pedestrian safety. This study addresses this issue by using multi-body modeling and computation to investigate the influence of vehicle front-end shape on pedestrian safety. Accordingly, a simulation matrix is constructed to vary bonnet leading-edge height, bonnet length, bonnet angle, and windshield angle. Subsequently, a set of 315 pedestrian-vehicle crash simulations are conducted using the multi-body simulation software MADYMO. Three vehicle velocities, i.e., 20, 30, and 40km/h, are set as the scenarios. Results show that the top governing factor is bonnet leading-edge height. The posture and head injury at the instant of head ground impact vary dramatically with increasing height because of the significant rise of the body bending point and the movement of the collision point. The bonnet angle is the second dominant factor that affects head-ground injury, followed by bonnet length and windshield angle. The results may elucidate one of the critical barriers to understanding head injury caused by ground impact and provide a solid theoretical guideline for considering pedestrian safety in vehicle design. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Traffic safety issues in North Dakota : phase II : driver knowledge, attitude, behavior and beliefs : focus group : young male drivers

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-10-01

    Traffic safety is a widespread social concern. Tackling the problem requires understanding the people : who are driving. This includes information about driver behavior, but also about perceptions these drivers : hold regarding their driving. North D...

  17. TINGKAT KENYAMANAN JALUR PEDESTRIAN DI KAWASAN SIMPANG LIMA KOTA SEMARANG BERDASARKAN PERSEPSI PENGGUNA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andi Purnomo

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available The comfortability of access from each region in big cities has led to the rapid increasing of regional mobility.The mobility incude the motorists and also pedestrians. Pedestrian path is a container or space for pedestrian activities and activities to provide services to pedestrians so as to improve the smoothness, safety, and comfort for pedestrians. Convenience is one of the vital values that should be enjoyed by people when doing activities. Pedestrian path in Semarang in Simpang Lima area itself is fairly crowded, and has been laid out in such a way for vendors. Crowd arising from the existence of street vendors sometimes make some people feel less comfortable to pass through. Problems that occur will be observed and analyzed, namely the level of comfort in the pedestrian path in Simpang Lima area based on user perception. The method used is descriptive qualitative theory describing the pedestrian path and direct observation to the object observed coupled with interviewing some respondents.

  18. Driver's views and behaviors about safety in China--what do they NOT know about driving?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Wei; Huang, Yueng-Hsiang; Roetting, Matthias; Wang, Ying; Wei, Hua

    2006-01-01

    Driving safety has become an extremely severe problem in China due to rapid motorization. Unless more effective measures are taken, the fatality risk and the total fatalities due to road traffic accidents are expected to continue to increase. Therefore, focus group discussions were conducted to explore driver attitudes and safe driver characteristics. The results were then compared with a similar study conducted with US drivers. Although similarities were found, differences were of more importance. The Chinese drivers concentrate more on driving skills and capabilities, whereas the US drivers concentrate more on practical safe driving guidelines. Then direct field observations were conducted for the Chinese drivers to empirically investigate the issues discovered. The use of safety belts, running lights, headlights, and turn signals were observed to investigate the drivers' behaviors. Results show that the safety belt use ratio is about 64%, running light use is nearly zero during rainy and snowy weather, headlights use after sunset is substantially delayed, and only about 40% of drivers use turn signals to indicate their intention to change lanes. These findings indicate that the authorities need to take appropriate countermeasures to change the views of the Chinese drivers regarding driving safety and their unsafe driving behaviors. Improvement of training content and methods as well as police enforcement would be recommended.

  19. A parametric duration model of the reaction times of drivers distracted by mobile phone conversations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haque, Md Mazharul; Washington, Simon

    2014-01-01

    The use of mobile phones while driving is more prevalent among young drivers-a less experienced cohort with elevated crash risk. The objective of this study was to examine and better understand the reaction times of young drivers to a traffic event originating in their peripheral vision whilst engaged in a mobile phone conversation. The CARRS-Q advanced driving simulator was used to test a sample of young drivers on various simulated driving tasks, including an event that originated within the driver's peripheral vision, whereby a pedestrian enters a zebra crossing from a sidewalk. Thirty-two licensed drivers drove the simulator in three phone conditions: baseline (no phone conversation), hands-free and handheld. In addition to driving the simulator each participant completed questionnaires related to driver demographics, driving history, usage of mobile phones while driving, and general mobile phone usage history. The participants were 21-26 years old and split evenly by gender. Drivers' reaction times to a pedestrian in the zebra crossing were modelled using a parametric accelerated failure time (AFT) duration model with a Weibull distribution. Also tested where two different model specifications to account for the structured heterogeneity arising from the repeated measures experimental design. The Weibull AFT model with gamma heterogeneity was found to be the best fitting model and identified four significant variables influencing the reaction times, including phone condition, driver's age, license type (provisional license holder or not), and self-reported frequency of usage of handheld phones while driving. The reaction times of drivers were more than 40% longer in the distracted condition compared to baseline (not distracted). Moreover, the impairment of reaction times due to mobile phone conversations was almost double for provisional compared to open license holders. A reduction in the ability to detect traffic events in the periphery whilst distracted

  20. Safer passenger car front shapes for pedestrians: A computational approach to reduce overall pedestrian injury risk in realistic impact scenarios.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Guibing; Yang, Jikuang; Simms, Ciaran

    2017-03-01

    Vehicle front shape has a significant influence on pedestrian injuries and the optimal design for overall pedestrian protection remains an elusive goal, especially considering the variability of vehicle-to-pedestrian accident scenarios. Therefore this study aims to develop and evaluate an efficient framework for vehicle front shape optimization for pedestrian protection accounting for the broad range of real world impact scenarios and their distributions in recent accident data. Firstly, a framework for vehicle front shape optimization for pedestrian protection was developed based on coupling of multi-body simulations and a genetic algorithm. This framework was then applied for optimizing passenger car front shape for pedestrian protection, and its predictions were evaluated using accident data and kinematic analyses. The results indicate that the optimization shows a good convergence and predictions of the optimization framework are corroborated when compared to the available accident data, and the optimization framework can distinguish 'good' and 'poor' vehicle front shapes for pedestrian safety. Thus, it is feasible and reliable to use the optimization framework for vehicle front shape optimization for reducing overall pedestrian injury risk. The results also show the importance of considering the broad range of impact scenarios in vehicle front shape optimization. A safe passenger car for overall pedestrian protection should have a wide and flat bumper (covering pedestrians' legs from the lower leg up to the shaft of the upper leg with generally even contacts), a bonnet leading edge height around 750mm, a short bonnet (17° or car front shape for head and leg protection are generally consistent, but partially conflict with pelvis protection. In particular, both head and leg injury risk increase with increasing bumper lower height and depth, and decrease with increasing bonnet leading edge height, while pelvis injury risk increases with increasing bonnet leading

  1. Knowledge of commercial bus drivers about road safety measures in Lagos, Nigeria.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okafor Ifeoma, P; Odeyemi Kofoworola, A; Dolapo Duro, C

    2013-01-01

    Road traffic injuries have persisted as a serious public health problem and much of the health burden is in developing countries. Over-speeding, poor enforcement of traffic regulations and commuter buses have been highly implicated in road traffic injuries in developing countries. The aim of this study was to determine drivers' knowledge of selected road safety measures, i.e. the pre-requisites for driver's license, road signs and speed limits. This was a cross-sectional study carried out in Lagos, Nigeria. Simple random sampling was used to select the two motor parks used for the study and all the consenting commercial minibus drivers operating within the parks (407) were included in the study. Data was collected with a pre-tested, structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire and analyzed with epi-info statistical software. Two hundred and sixty-one (64.1%) of them knew that Visual Acuity test should be done before obtaining driver's license and 53.8% knew the correct minimum age for obtaining driver's license. Only 1% of the drivers had correct knowledge of the driver's license authorities in Nigeria. The drivers had poor knowledge of road signs (59.0%) and poor knowledge of maximum speed limits (100%). The oldest, least educated and least experienced drivers had the poorest level of knowledge. The drivers demonstrated poor knowledge of road safety measures. There is need for driver education to improve their knowledge.

  2. Modeling the Perceptions and Preferences of Pedestrians on Crossing Facilities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hongwei Guo

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrian’s street-crossing behaviour has a significant effect on traffic performance and safety. The crossing behaviour is determined by human factors and environmental factors. Aiming at examining the pedestrian perceptions toward crossing facilities and preferences for crossing locations, an observational study of pedestrian crossing behaviour at urban street is conducted. The perceptions and preferences of pedestrians are collected using stated preference technique. A specific questionnaire is designed to conduct the stated preference survey. A multinomial logit model is proposed to describe the perceptions and preferences of pedestrians on crossing facilities and locations. The sensitivity analysis is performed to discuss the influence of various factors on crossing behaviour. Then the relationship between crossing locations and crossing distances is analyzed by a new proposed method. With the theoretical analysis, the engineering solutions considering pedestrian behaviour are suggested. The results are helpful to design human-centered crossing facilities in urban traffic.

  3. Real-time pedestrian detection with the videos of car camera

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yunling Zhang

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrians in the vehicle path are in danger of being hit, thus causing severe injury to pedestrians and vehicle occupants. Therefore, real-time pedestrian detection with the video of vehicle-mounted camera is of great significance to vehicle–pedestrian collision warning and traffic safety of self-driving car. In this article, a real-time scheme was proposed based on integral channel features and graphics processing unit. The proposed method does not need to resize the input image. Moreover, the computationally expensive convolution of the detectors and the input image was converted into the dot product of two larger matrixes, which can be computed effectively using a graphics processing unit. The experiments showed that the proposed method could be employed to detect pedestrians in the video of car camera at 20+ frames per second with acceptable error rates. Thus, it can be applied in real-time detection tasks with the videos of car camera.

  4. Pedestrian temporal and spatial gap acceptance at mid-block street crossing in developing world.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pawar, Digvijay S; Patil, Gopal R

    2015-02-01

    Most of the midblock pedestrian crossings on urban roads in India are uncontrolled; wherein the high degree of discretion in pedestrians' behavior while crossing the traffic stream, has made the situation complex to analyze. Vehicles do not yield to pedestrians, even though the traffic laws give priority to pedestrians over motorized vehicles at unsignalized pedestrian crossings. Therefore, a pedestrian has to decide if an available gap is safe or not for crossing. This paper aims to investigate pedestrian temporal and spatial gap acceptance for midblock street crossings. Field data were collected using video camera at two midblock pedestrian crossings. The data extraction in laboratory resulted in 1107 pedestrian gaps. Available gaps, pedestrians' decision, traffic volume, etc. were extracted from the videos. While crossing a road with multiple lanes, rolling gap acceptance behavior was observed. Using binary logit analysis, six utility models were developed, three each for temporal and spatial gaps. The 50th percentile temporal and spatial gaps ranged from 4.1 to 4.8s and 67 to 79 m respectively, whereas the 85th percentile temporal and spatial gaps ranged from 5 to 5.8s and 82 to 95 m respectively. These gap values were smaller than that reported in the studies in developed countries. The speed of conflicting vehicle was found to be significant in spatial gap but not in temporal gap acceptance. The gap acceptance decision was also found to be affected by the type of conflicting vehicles. The insights from this study can be used for the safety and performance evaluation of uncontrolled midblock street crossings in developing countries. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd and National Safety Council. All rights reserved.

  5. Application of demographic analysis to pedestrian safety : [project summary].

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-05-01

    FDOT has been working diligently to improve its facilities for pedestrians and cyclists, including : initiatives like the Complete Streets Policy and Implementation Plan. However, one of the : challenges facing FDOT is targeting those areas of greate...

  6. Understanding road safety in Kenya: views of matatu drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raynor, Nicolas J; Mirzoev, Tolib

    2014-09-01

    Road traffic accidents (RTAs) are estimated to cause 1.3 million deaths and 20-50 million injuries worldwide. Road safety is a challenge in Kenya with causes being multi-factorial. Matatus (minibuses) are involved in a large proportion of accidents. A literature review was completed to identify key issues and refine the scope of the study. The fieldwork included 20 semi-structured interviews with matatu drivers. All participants were male, with driving experience of 1-20 years. Thematic framework was used for analysis. Some unstructured observations on different road users and their behaviours were also recorded. Literature showed that the causes of RTAs in Kenya are multi-factorial, but that human factors play a large part. There is also an evidence gap concerning matatu drivers, who are key stakeholders in road safety. Fieldwork showed that the matatu industry creates financial pressures on drivers and an excessive level of competition, leading to dangerous driving. Corruption of traffic police appears to be a major barrier to improving road safety, as road safety legislation is not enforced, and bribery has become the cultural norm. The general public, including passengers and private vehicles owners, also cause problems by failing to understand their role in road safety and placing the blame on others. The key policy implication for improving road safety in Kenya is seeking measures to ensure responsibility by all road users through awareness raising in the short-term and reforming the matatu industry and addressing the root causes of corruption in the longer term. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  7. Safety Risk of Mobile Phone Use while Driving in Sample of Taxi Drivers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Murat Darçın

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Previous research has shown that mobile phone use while driving increases the risk of being involved in an accident. This paper investigates the reported frequency of taxi drivers' mobile phone use and its effects on traffic safety. A representative sample of taxi drivers was included in an interview-based survey by trained interviewers. It was found that 81% of the taxi drivers reported talking by using hand-held phone while driving. There is a relationship between the phoning while driving and drivers' self-reported involvement in a dangerous situation. It is clear that the use of mobile phone while driving is an important traffic safety issue.

  8. Pedestrian detection from thermal images: A sparse representation based approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qi, Bin; John, Vijay; Liu, Zheng; Mita, Seiichi

    2016-05-01

    Pedestrian detection, a key technology in computer vision, plays a paramount role in the applications of advanced driver assistant systems (ADASs) and autonomous vehicles. The objective of pedestrian detection is to identify and locate people in a dynamic environment so that accidents can be avoided. With significant variations introduced by illumination, occlusion, articulated pose, and complex background, pedestrian detection is a challenging task for visual perception. Different from visible images, thermal images are captured and presented with intensity maps based objects' emissivity, and thus have an enhanced spectral range to make human beings perceptible from the cool background. In this study, a sparse representation based approach is proposed for pedestrian detection from thermal images. We first adopted the histogram of sparse code to represent image features and then detect pedestrian with the extracted features in an unimodal and a multimodal framework respectively. In the unimodal framework, two types of dictionaries, i.e. joint dictionary and individual dictionary, are built by learning from prepared training samples. In the multimodal framework, a weighted fusion scheme is proposed to further highlight the contributions from features with higher separability. To validate the proposed approach, experiments were conducted to compare with three widely used features: Haar wavelets (HWs), histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), and histogram of phase congruency (HPC) as well as two classification methods, i.e. AdaBoost and support vector machine (SVM). Experimental results on a publicly available data set demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach.

  9. Modeling safety risk perception due to mobile phone distraction among four wheeler drivers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raghunathan Rajesh

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, there is an increasing trend in the use of information and communication technology devices in new vehicles. Due to these increasing service facilities, driver distraction has become a major concern for transportation safety. To reduce safety risks, it is crucial to understand how distracting activities affect driver behavior at different levels of vehicle control. The objective of this work is to understand how the vehicle and driver characteristics influence mobile phone usage while driving and associated risk perception of road safety incidents. Based on literature review, a man–machine framework for distracted driving and a mobile phone distraction model is presented. The study highlights the findings from a questionnaire survey conducted in Kerala, India. The questionnaire uses a 5-point Likert scale. Responses from 1203 four-wheeler drivers are collected using random sampling approach. The questionnaire items associated with three driver-drive characteristics are: (i Human Factors (age, experience, emotional state, behavior of driver, (ii Driver space (meter, controls, light, heat, steering, actuators of vehicle, (iii Driving conditions (speed, distance, duration, traffic, signals. This mobile phone distraction model is tested using structural equation modeling procedure. The study indicates that among the three characteristics, ‘Human Factors’ has the highest influence on perceived distraction due to mobile phones. It is also observed that safety risk perception due to mobile phone usage while driving is moderate. The practical relevance of the study is to place emphasis on behavior-based controls and to focus on strategies leveraging perception of distraction due to mobile phones while driving.

  10. Advanced Emergency Braking Controller Design for Pedestrian Protection Oriented Automotive Collision Avoidance System

    OpenAIRE

    Lie, Guo; Zejian, Ren; Pingshu, Ge; Jing, Chang

    2014-01-01

    Automotive collision avoidance system, which aims to enhance the active safety of the vehicle, has become a hot research topic in recent years. However, most of the current systems ignore the active protection of pedestrian and other vulnerable groups in the transportation system. An advanced emergency braking control system is studied by taking into account the pedestrians and the vehicles. Three typical braking scenarios are defined and the safety situations are assessed by comparing the cu...

  11. Traffic Safety of Older Drivers in Various Types of Road Intersections

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomaž Tollazzi

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available In industrialized countries people over 50 years of age represent a rapidly growing part of population. Their lifestyle is also becoming more active, which means that the percentage of older drivers in the population of all drivers is also increasing. Many different studies have shown that elderly drivers are more frequently involved in specific types of accidents, especially at intersections. In the past 15 years there was a trend of increasing popularity of roundabouts in Slovenia. Their introduction was generally supported by the arguments of increased traffic-flow capacity and traffic safety as well. The studies on which these arguments are based were performed with an “ideal” type of driver in mind; the one that fully understands new rules and reacts correctly in all situations that may occur at such intersections, where there are no light signals to guide them. An elderly person does not necessarily conform to that ideal and if the percentage of elderly drivers became significant, the premises of the above mentioned studies may not be correct anymore which in turn implies that their results could also be questioned. The present study concentrated on the evaluation of traffic safety of elderly drivers, at various types of intersection, from their own perspective. Various statistical analyses of obtained data were performed. The most important finding was that we may claim, with high degree of probability, that the average person of the age of over 60 feels more unsafe at double-lane roundabouts than they would feel had the same intersection been equipped with traffic lights. Elderly traffic participants will always cause more accidents or participate in them due to hazardous factors. Challenge, arising from many different studies and researches, is in studying what measures and solutions can reduce the risk for elderly participants. KEYWORDS: traffic safety, road intersections, roundabouts, elderly people, older drivers

  12. Automatic Pedestrian Crossing Detection and Impairment Analysis Based on Mobile Mapping System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, X.; Zhang, Y.; Li, Q.

    2017-09-01

    Pedestrian crossing, as an important part of transportation infrastructures, serves to secure pedestrians' lives and possessions and keep traffic flow in order. As a prominent feature in the street scene, detection of pedestrian crossing contributes to 3D road marking reconstruction and diminishing the adverse impact of outliers in 3D street scene reconstruction. Since pedestrian crossing is subject to wearing and tearing from heavy traffic flow, it is of great imperative to monitor its status quo. On this account, an approach of automatic pedestrian crossing detection using images from vehicle-based Mobile Mapping System is put forward and its defilement and impairment are analyzed in this paper. Firstly, pedestrian crossing classifier is trained with low recall rate. Then initial detections are refined by utilizing projection filtering, contour information analysis, and monocular vision. Finally, a pedestrian crossing detection and analysis system with high recall rate, precision and robustness will be achieved. This system works for pedestrian crossing detection under different situations and light conditions. It can recognize defiled and impaired crossings automatically in the meanwhile, which facilitates monitoring and maintenance of traffic facilities, so as to reduce potential traffic safety problems and secure lives and property.

  13. Cognitive screening of older drivers does not produce safety benefits

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Siren, Anu Kristiina; Meng, Annette

    2012-01-01

    Although screening policies for older drivers based on chronological age are widely used in many countries, previous research has shown that increasing age does not cause higher crash rates and that consequently, chronological age per se is at best only a weak predictor of safe driving performanc...... is an example of a political measure that intuitively makes sense, but fails to produce the desired benefits. On the contrary, on a system level, it decreases the overall safety and is connected to various direct and indirect costs........ Previous research on age-based mandatory screening of older drivers has not been able to demonstrate any safety benefits from screening measures.The present study is a population-based evaluation of the safety effects that the introduction of the cognitive test as an age-based screening tool has had...

  14. A RE-ASSESSMENT OF OLDER DRIVERS AS A ROAD SAFETY RISK

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jim LANGFORD

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Older drivers are frequently viewed as overly represented in crashes, particularly when crash involvement per distance travelled is considered. This perception has led to a call for tighter licensing conditions for older drivers, a policy which inevitably results in mobility restrictions for at least some drivers. However there is a growing body of research evidence which shows that as a group, older drivers represent no greater road risk than drivers from other age groups once different levels of driving activity are taken into account. This paper has examined aspects of older drivers' fitness to drive based on survey data and off-road and on-road driving performance from a sample of 905 New Zealand older drivers. The results show that policies which target all older drivers and lead to licensing and mobility restrictions cannot be justified from a safety basis.

  15. Pedestrian injury causation study (pedestrian accident typing)

    Science.gov (United States)

    1982-08-01

    A new computerized pedestrian accident typing procedure was tested on 1,997 cases from the Pedestrian Injury Causation Study (PICS). Two coding procedures were used to determine the effects of quantity and quality of information on accident typing ac...

  16. Data and methods for studying commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue, highway safety and long-term driver health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stern, Hal S; Blower, Daniel; Cohen, Michael L; Czeisler, Charles A; Dinges, David F; Greenhouse, Joel B; Guo, Feng; Hanowski, Richard J; Hartenbaum, Natalie P; Krueger, Gerald P; Mallis, Melissa M; Pain, Richard F; Rizzo, Matthew; Sinha, Esha; Small, Dylan S; Stuart, Elizabeth A; Wegman, David H

    2018-03-09

    This article summarizes the recommendations on data and methodology issues for studying commercial motor vehicle driver fatigue of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study. A framework is provided that identifies the various factors affecting driver fatigue and relating driver fatigue to crash risk and long-term driver health. The relevant factors include characteristics of the driver, vehicle, carrier and environment. Limitations of existing data are considered and potential sources of additional data described. Statistical methods that can be used to improve understanding of the relevant relationships from observational data are also described. The recommendations for enhanced data collection and the use of modern statistical methods for causal inference have the potential to enhance our understanding of the relationship of fatigue to highway safety and to long-term driver health. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  17. Methodological Analysis about the Potential Avoidabilty of Motor Vehicles Colliding Against Pedestrians in Urban Areas

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cabrerizo Sinca, J.; Campos Cacheda, J.M.; Perez Diez, F.

    2016-07-01

    The main motivation of the authors of this article is to establish a rigorous definition of the potential capacity that a motor vehicle driver has to avoid a collision against a pedestrian. Henceforth we will call this capacity avoidability. To calculate the avoidability, it is necessary to analyze time, distance and itinerary, initial position of the pedestrian when exposed to the risk, initial speed; theoretical maximum speed developed by the vehicle and road limit speed; the driver’s reaction time and the influence of the environment; and the interrelation of the initial positions of vehicle and pedestrian with respect to the transversal axis of the road. The definition, categorized by variables, of a driver’s ability to avoid run over a pedestrian in an urban area has an evident usefulness: it allows knowing the influence of the initial speed of a vehicle as an isolated variable and the importance of the road limit speed in the ability to prevent an accident. (Author)

  18. What the drivers do and do not tell you: using verbal protocol analysis to investigate driver behaviour in emergency situations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Banks, Victoria A; Stanton, Neville A; Harvey, Catherine

    2014-01-01

    Although task analysis of pedestrian detection can provide us with useful insights into how a driver may behave in emergency situations, the cognitive elements of driver decision-making are less well understood. To assist in the design of future Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, such as Autonomous Emergency Brake systems, it is essential that the cognitive elements of the driving task are better understood. This paper uses verbal protocol analysis in an exploratory fashion to uncover the thought processes underlying behavioural outcomes represented by hard data collected using the Southampton University Driving Simulator.

  19. The roles of gender, age and cognitive development in children's pedestrian route selection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barton, B K; Ulrich, T; Lyday, B

    2012-03-01

    Thousands of American children under the age of 10 years are injured annually as pedestrians. Despite the scope of this public health problem, knowledge about behavioural control and developmental factors involved in the aetiology of child pedestrian safety is limited. The present study examined the roles of gender, age and two aspects of cognitive development (visual search and efficiency of processing) in children's safe pedestrian route selection. Measures of cognitive functioning (visual search and efficiency) and selections of risky pedestrian routes were collected from 65 children aged 5-9 years. Boys, younger children and those with less developed cognitive functioning selected riskier pedestrian routes. Cognitive functioning also subsumed age as a predictor of risky route selections. Our findings suggest developmental differences, specifically less developed cognitive functioning, play important roles in children's pedestrian decision making. Directions for future examination are discussed. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

  20. NIOSH national survey of long-haul truck drivers: Injury and safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Guang X.; Sieber, W. Karl; Lincoln, Jennifer E.; Birdsey, Jan; Hitchcock, Edward M.; Nakata, Akinori; Robinson, Cynthia F.; Collins, James W.; Sweeney, Marie H.

    2015-01-01

    Approximately 1,701,500 people were employed as heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in the United States in 2012. The majority of them were long-haul truck drivers (LHTDs). There are limited data on occupational injury and safety in LHTDs, which prompted a targeted national survey. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health conducted a nationally representative survey of 1265 LHTDs at 32 truck stops across the contiguous United States in 2010. Data were collected on truck crashes, near misses, moving violations, work-related injuries, work environment, safety climate, driver training, job satisfaction, and driving behaviors. Results suggested that an estimated 2.6% of LHTDs reported a truck crash in 2010, 35% reported at least one crash while working as an LHTD, 24% reported at least one near miss in the previous 7 days, 17% reported at least one moving violation ticket and 4.7% reported a non-crash injury involving days away from work in the previous 12 months. The majority (68%) of non-crash injuries among company drivers were not reported to employers. An estimate of 73% of LHTDs (16% often and 58% sometimes) perceived their delivery schedules unrealistically tight; 24% often continued driving despite fatigue, bad weather, or heavy traffic because they needed to deliver or pick up a load at a given time; 4.5% often drove 10 miles per hours or more over the speed limit; 6.0% never wore a seatbelt; 36% were often frustrated by other drivers on the road; 35% often had to wait for access to a loading dock; 37% reported being noncompliant with hours-of-service rules (10% often and 27% sometimes); 38% of LHTDs perceived their entry-level training inadequate; and 15% did not feel that safety of workers was a high priority with their management. This survey brings to light a number of important safety issues for further research and interventions, e.g., high prevalence of truck crashes, injury underreporting, unrealistically tight delivery schedules

  1. Prediction equation for vehicle-pedestrian crash and safety analysis ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The occurrences of vehicle-pedestrian crashes at signalized intersections were investigated using a 3 year (2004-2006) crash records of 82 signalized intersections in Accra, Kumasi, Tema, Sekondi-Takoradi and Tamale. The data were analyzed using Micro-computer Accident Analysis Package. Traffic flow characteristics ...

  2. Vision and commercial motor vehicle driver safety : vol. 1 : evidence report

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-06-06

    The purpose of this evidence report is to address several key questions posed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) that pertain to vision and commercial motor vehicle (CMV) driver safety. Each of these key questions was develope...

  3. Study on the Weaving Behavior of High Density Bidirectional Pedestrian Flow

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lishan Sun

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Weaving area may be the critical risk place in the subway transfer station. When improving service level of the weaving area, the characteristic of pedestrian weaving behavior should be systemically discussed. This paper described the mechanism of weaving behavior on high density pedestrian which was analyzed by the collection data of controlled experiment. Different weaving behaviors were contrasted due to different volumes in the bidirectional passageway. Video analysis was conducted to extract pedestrian moving behavior and calibrate the movement data with SIMI Motion. Influence of the high density weaving pedestrian was studied based on the statistical results (e.g., velocity, walking distance, and journey time. Furthermore, the quantitative method by speed analysis was announced to discriminate the conflict point. The scopes of weaving area and impact area at different pedestrian volumes were revealed to analyze the pedestrian turning angle. The paper concluded that walking pedestrians are significantly influenced by the weaving conflict and trend to turn the moving direction to avoid the conflict in weaving area; the ratio of stable weaving area and impact area is 2 to 3. The conclusions do provide a method to evaluate the transfer station safety and a facility layout guidance to improve the capacity.

  4. AUTOMATIC PEDESTRIAN CROSSING DETECTION AND IMPAIRMENT ANALYSIS BASED ON MOBILE MAPPING SYSTEM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    X. Liu

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrian crossing, as an important part of transportation infrastructures, serves to secure pedestrians’ lives and possessions and keep traffic flow in order. As a prominent feature in the street scene, detection of pedestrian crossing contributes to 3D road marking reconstruction and diminishing the adverse impact of outliers in 3D street scene reconstruction. Since pedestrian crossing is subject to wearing and tearing from heavy traffic flow, it is of great imperative to monitor its status quo. On this account, an approach of automatic pedestrian crossing detection using images from vehicle-based Mobile Mapping System is put forward and its defilement and impairment are analyzed in this paper. Firstly, pedestrian crossing classifier is trained with low recall rate. Then initial detections are refined by utilizing projection filtering, contour information analysis, and monocular vision. Finally, a pedestrian crossing detection and analysis system with high recall rate, precision and robustness will be achieved. This system works for pedestrian crossing detection under different situations and light conditions. It can recognize defiled and impaired crossings automatically in the meanwhile, which facilitates monitoring and maintenance of traffic facilities, so as to reduce potential traffic safety problems and secure lives and property.

  5. THE INTRODUCTION OF THE METHODOLOGY TO IMPROVE ROAD SAFETY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. V. Kapsky

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Recommendations for improving the road safety and quality of road traffic controlled junctions(crossings on individual parameters of traffic light control, improvement of traffic light control by optimizing the length of the transition interval in the traffic light cycle, increase awareness and early warning drivers about the upcoming change traffic lights division of transport and pedestrian traffic, road conditions , transportation planning and technical aids of road  traffic, as well as recommendations for the use of the hump in the settlements, etc.

  6. Risk Factors for Road Transport-Related Injury among Pedestrians in Rural Ghana: Implications for Road Safety Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teye-Kwadjo, Enoch

    2017-01-01

    Objectives: Injuries and mortality resulting from pedestrian road traffic crashes are a major public health problem in Ghana. This study investigated risk factors for road transport-related injury among pedestrians in rural Ghana. Design: Case study design using qualitative data. Method: In-depth interviews were conducted with pedestrians.…

  7. Influence of professional drivers' personality traits on road traffic safety: case study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Živković, Snežana; Nikolić, Vesna; Markič, Mirko

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this paper is to present basic elements of the research directed at identifying and determining the personality traits of professional drivers that affect safe, secure and enjoyable ride on public roads. A quantitative method has been used here, whereas data were acquired from a questionnaire based on a sample of 59 professional drivers. Determining personality traits of professional drivers that are in correlation with a safe and pleasant ride on the roads has been enabled by applying the five-factor model of personality ('Big Five') and the Personality Inventory NEO-PI. From these results it was concluded that safe operation of the vehicle in traffic involves the successful 'conduct' of oneself, which recognises the importance of certain personality traits of professional drivers for traffic safety and the need for appropriate professional selection in the case of employment of professional drivers. Research results implicate development of educational programmes aimed at achieving harmony of psychological, physical and sensory health, that is, programmes for permanent informing, educating and training professional drivers for defensive driving. The research opens the way for new research tasks that should help in creating a specific structure of curricula that can be used in a variety of transportation companies and enterprises to improve general and public safety.

  8. Volvo drivers' experiences with advanced crash avoidance and related technologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eichelberger, Angela H; McCartt, Anne T

    2014-01-01

    Crash avoidance technologies can potentially prevent or mitigate many crashes, but their success depends in part on driver acceptance. Owners of 2010-2012 model Volvo vehicles with several technologies were interviewed about their experiences. Interviews were conducted in summer 2012 with 155 owners of vehicles with City Safety as a standard feature; 145 owners with an optional technology package that included adaptive cruise control, distance alert, collision warning with full auto brake (and pedestrian detection on certain models), driver alert control, and lane departure warning; and 172 owners with both City Safety and the technology package. The survey response rates were 21 percent for owners with City Safety, 30 percent for owners with the technology package, and 27 percent for owners with both. Ten percent of owners opted out before the telephone survey began, and 18 percent declined to participate when called. Despite some annoyance, most respondents always leave the systems on, although fewer do so for lane departure warning (59%). For each of the systems, at least 80 percent of respondents with the system would want it on their next vehicle. Many respondents reported safer driving habits with the systems (e.g., following less closely with adaptive cruise control, using turn signals more often with lane departure warning). Fewer respondents reported potentially unsafe behavior, such as allowing the vehicle to brake for them at least some of the time. About one third of respondents experienced autonomous braking when they believed they were at risk of crashing, and about one fifth of respondents thought it had prevented a crash. About one fifth of respondents with the technology package reported that they were confused or misunderstood which safety system had activated in their vehicle. Consistent with the results for early adopters in the previous survey of Volvo and Infiniti owners, the present survey found that driver acceptance of the technologies

  9. FUNGSI DAN PERAN JALUR PEDESTRIAN BAGI PEJALAN KAKI Sebuah Studi Banding Terhadap Fungsi Pedestrian

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lily Mauliani

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available ABSTRAK. Jalur pedestrian pada sebuah kota adalah bagian yang sangat penting, baik sebagai kelengkapan (amenity kota maupun sebagai tempat orang berjalan kaki dengan aman dan nyaman. Namun untuk kota Jakarta, dan mungkin juga kota-kota lainnya di Indonesia, pedestrian seringkali mengalami perubahan fungsi tidak hanya sekedar sebagai jalur pejalan kaki namun juga bisa menjadi jalur kendaraan bermotor, area berjualan para pedagang kaki lima yang bersifat mobile, tetapi bisa juga menjadi “ruko” alias rumah toko. Permasalahannya adalah bagaimana nasib para pejalan kaki, dimana mereka dapat berjalan kaki dengan aman, tanpa takut tertabrak pengendara sepeda motor, tersenggol bajay, mikrolet atau mobil pribadi? Pembahasan tentang pedestrian ini dilakukan dengan cara mengamati dan membandingkan antara pedestrian yang ada di Jakarta dan di Singapura, dilihat dari segi fungsi dan penataannya.   Kata kunci : pedestrian, fungsi, pejalan kaki   ABSTRACT. Pedestrian path within the city has been regarded as an important element, either as a city amenity which contribute an aesthetic of city space or as a space for people or pedestrian to walk safely and comfort. Jakarta as one of a big city in Indonesia, has many pedestrian paths within it, but there are many pedestrian paths which have been changed in function. The pedestrian paths are not as a space for people to walk but have been accommodated as motorcycle lines as well as mobile shop or shop-house which has been known as RUKO or rumah toko. The main problem is how people could walk safely and comfort. This discussion of pedestrian paths will be explored in this paper by comparing the function and the design as well as the plan of pedestrian paths in Jakarta and Singapore.   Keywords : pedestrian path, function, pedestrian.

  10. Rapid detection and identification of pedestrian impacts using a distributed sensor network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Andrew C.; Chang, Fu-Kuo

    2005-05-01

    Pedestrian fatalities from automobile accidents often occur as a result of head injuries suffered from impacts with an automobile front end. Active pedestrian protection systems with proper pedestrian recognition algorithms can protect pedestrians from such head trauma. An investigation was conducted to assess the feasibility of using a network of piezoelectric sensors mounted on the front bumper beam of an automobile to discriminate between impacts with "pedestrian" and "non-pedestrian" objects. This information would be used to activate a safety device (e.g., external airbag or pop-up hood) to provide protection for the vulnerable pedestrian. An analytical foundation for the object-bumper impact problem will be presented, as well as the classical beam impact theory. The mechanical waves that propagate in the structure from an external impact contain a wealth of information about the specifics of a particular impact -- object mass, size, impact speed, etc. -- but most notably the object stiffness, which identifies the impacted object. Using the frequency content of the sensor signals, it can be shown that impacts with a "pedestrian" object of varying size, weight, and speed can be easily differentiated from impacts with other "non-pedestrian" objects. Simulation results will illustrate this phenomenon, and experimental tests will verify the results. A comprehensive series of impact tests were performed for validation, using both a stationary front bumper with a drop-pendulum impactor and a moving car with stationary impact objects. Results from both tests will be presented.

  11. Gender Differences in Pedestrian Perception and Satisfaction on the Walkability of Kuala Lumpur City Center

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arshad Ahmad Kamil

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The quality of built environment usually influences the walkability of a city. This is because each pedestrian walk differently on different type of facilities or built environment provided to them. This paper aims to investigate whether gender differences influences the pedestrian perception and satisfaction level at three sidewalks located within the Kuala Lumpur City Center by means of questionnaire survey. A total of 317 pedestrians were involved in the questionnaire survey at the three different sidewalk locations. The result shows significant differences in mean satisfaction value between male and female pedestrians. Female pedestrian give lower satisfaction value for overall travel experience at Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman but higher satisfaction value at Petaling Street and Bukit Bintang compared to male pedestrian. Overall, the satisfaction level was rated between acceptable to satisfactory regardless of gender differences. Improvements should be made for the safety parameter because both male and female pedestrian gives lowest satisfaction level in that area.

  12. Counterfactual simulations applied to SHRP2 crashes: The effect of driver behavior models on safety benefit estimations of intelligent safety systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bärgman, Jonas; Boda, Christian-Nils; Dozza, Marco

    2017-05-01

    As the development and deployment of in-vehicle intelligent safety systems (ISS) for crash avoidance and mitigation have rapidly increased in the last decades, the need to evaluate their prospective safety benefits before introduction has never been higher. Counterfactual simulations using relevant mathematical models (for vehicle dynamics, sensors, the environment, ISS algorithms, and models of driver behavior) have been identified as having high potential. However, although most of these models are relatively mature, models of driver behavior in the critical seconds before a crash are still relatively immature. There are also large conceptual differences between different driver models. The objective of this paper is, firstly, to demonstrate the importance of the choice of driver model when counterfactual simulations are used to evaluate two ISS: Forward collision warning (FCW), and autonomous emergency braking (AEB). Secondly, the paper demonstrates how counterfactual simulations can be used to perform sensitivity analyses on parameter settings, both for driver behavior and ISS algorithms. Finally, the paper evaluates the effect of the choice of glance distribution in the driver behavior model on the safety benefit estimation. The paper uses pre-crash kinematics and driver behavior from 34 rear-end crashes from the SHRP2 naturalistic driving study for the demonstrations. The results for FCW show a large difference in the percent of avoided crashes between conceptually different models of driver behavior, while differences were small for conceptually similar models. As expected, the choice of model of driver behavior did not affect AEB benefit much. Based on our results, researchers and others who aim to evaluate ISS with the driver in the loop through counterfactual simulations should be sure to make deliberate and well-grounded choices of driver models: the choice of model matters. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Severity of vehicle bumper location in vehicle-to-pedestrian impact accidents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matsui, Yasuhiro; Hitosugi, Masahito; Mizuno, Koji

    2011-10-10

    Pedestrian protection is one of the key topics for safety measures in traffic accidents all over the world. To analyze the relation between the collision site of the vehicle bumper and the severity of the lower extremity injuries, we performed biomechanical experiments. We compared the applied external force and the risks of subsequent injuries between the impact of the center and side positions of the front bumper. These comparisons were performed by practical impact tests with eight typical different types of cars which were typical of the current vehicle fleets. The tests were made using the TRL legform impactor which was a mechanical substitute of a pedestrian lower extremity. The TRL impactor is used all over the world for assessing the safety of car bumpers. It was found that the risks of lower extremity injuries in the impacts at the side positions, in front of the vehicle's side member, were significantly higher than those at the center. In the tests, we found that foam materials around the rigid front cross member had a significant effect on reducing the lower extremity injury risks and especially tibia fracture risk against vehicle bumper center collisions, but had little effect at the sides of the bumper over the vehicle's side members where the foam was thinner. We also found that the front shape of the vehicle affected the risk of ligaments injuries. According to these results, the information of impact locations of cars in vehicle-to-pedestrian traffic accidents is valuable for clinicians to diagnose patients with lower extremity injuries in traffic accidents and for forensic pathologists to analyze the accident reconstruction. Furthermore, the results suggest that testing of the bumper area in front of the main longitudinal beams should be included in the car safety legislation to require pedestrian safety. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. The effects of driver identity on driving safety in a retrospective feedback system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Guozhen; Wu, Changxu

    2012-03-01

    Retrospective feedback that provides detailed information on a driver's performance in critical driving situations at the end of a trip enhances his/her driving behaviors and safe driving habits. Although this has been demonstrated by a previous study, retrospective feedback can be further improved and applied to non-critical driving situations, which is needed for transportation safety. To propose a new retrospective feedback system that uses driver identity (i.e., a driver's name) and to experimentally study its effects on measures of driving performance and safety in a driving simulator. We conducted a behavioral experimental study with 30 participants. "Feedback type" was a between-subject variable with three conditions: no feedback (control group), feedback without driver identity, and feedback with driver identity. We measured multiple aspects of participants' driving behavior. To control for potential confounds, factors that were significantly correlated with driving behavior (e.g., age and driving experience) were all entered as covariates into a multivariate analysis of variance. To examine the effects of speeding on collision severity in driving simulation studies, we also developed a new index - momentum of potential collision - with a set of equations. Subjects who used a feedback system with driver identity had the fewest speeding violations and central-line crossings, spent the least amount of time speeding and crossing the central line, had the lowest speeding and central-line crossing magnitude, ran the fewest red lights, and had the smallest momentum of potential collision compared to the groups with feedback without driver identity and without feedback (control group). The new retrospective feedback system with driver identity has the potential to enhance a person's driving safety (e.g., speeding, central-line crossing, momentum of potential collision), which is an indication of the valence of one's name in a feedback system design. Copyright

  15. Engineering design for pedestrian safety at highway-rail grade crossings

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-07-01

    A number of pedestrian treatments at railroad grade crossings have been developed and are used throughout the United States. The decision of when to use these treatments is generally a matter of best practices, using a decision tree, or conducting a ...

  16. The relationship between the availability of the supporting elements of pedestrian with pedestrian crossing facility usage based on user preferences (Case Study corridor of Sumbersari Street, Gajayana Street, MT. Haryono Street, Malang City)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soetrisno, D. P.

    2017-06-01

    Pedestrian crossing facilities are effective enough to avoid pedestrians with vehicles, but its utilization is still quite low. It indicated that safety is not the only factor that influences a person to utilize the pedestrian crossing facilities. In addition, the availability of supporting elements of the pedestrian is still not quite attention, which is also became a factor that causes the pedestrians doesn’t utilize the pedestrian crossing facilities. Therefore, this research was structured to examine the relationship between the availability of the supporting elements of the pedestrian with pedestrian crossing facility usage based on user preferences. Data collection method used is primary survey consist of observation and the questionnaire. Sampling techniques used is purposive sampling with the number of respondents as many as 211 respondents by using questionnaire with ordinal scales to identify respondents’ consideration level of supporting elements pedestrian and crossing facility utilization factors. The survey is done on 15 crossing facilities area in 3 different locations with the same characteristics of land use in the form of higher education area (university area) and trades and services activities area. The analysis technique used is frequency distribution analysis in order to identify preference pedestrian on the availability of supporting elements of pedestrian and pedestrian crossing facility utilization factors, and chi square analysis is used to analyze the relationship between the availability of the supporting elements of the pedestrian with pedestrian crossing facility utilization. Based on the chi square analysis results with significance 5 % obtained the result that there are six supporting elements of pedestrian having correlation to the factors of pedestrian crossing facility utilization consist of the availability of sidewalk, pedestrian lights, Street Lighting Lamps, Pedestrian Crossing Markings Facilities, Sign Crossings

  17. Truck drivers' opinion on road safety in Tanzania--a questionnaire study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kircher, Katja; Andersson, Jan

    2013-01-01

    Even though the traffic fatality risk (fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants) in Tanzania is quite low, the fatality rate (fatalities per 10,000 vehicles) is one of the highest in the world. With increasing vehicle density this means that the number of people dying in traffic will increase dramatically in the near future. Therefore, it is important to implement measures to increase traffic safety as soon as possible, and in order to be able to do this in an efficient way, it is important to investigate where the main problems lie. Within the European Union (EU) project ASSET-Road a questionnaire study on road safety was conducted with 250 truck drivers in Tanzania. The study was done to increase the knowledge about the situation of the Tanzanian truckers, who are the most frequent road users in the country. The drivers were interviewed in 3 different towns in southern Tanzania, and participation was voluntary. The questionnaire treated demographics, the state of the drivers' vehicles, the frequency of breakdowns, and the maintenance of the vehicles. Further questions concerned driver behavior, crash involvement, crash risk, and crash mitigation. The drivers who participated in the study were predominantly male and their average age was 36 years. Truck drivers reported driving 10.6 h without a break on average, with several drivers reporting that they had to drive 24 h without rest. Around 40 percent of the trucks did not have any seat belts installed, with a larger share of older trucks lacking belts. Most of the drivers who had seat belts reported using them, however. Almost 40 percent of the drivers reported being involved in at least one crash, and 45 percent of those drivers had experienced fatal crashes. This underlines that the crash frequency per vehicle is very high, and the results are often severe, especially when heavy vehicles are involved. When asked what the 3 most common crash causations were, driver-related causes were named frequently. Drivers were

  18. Evaluating the effectiveness of Behavior-Based Safety education methods for commercial vehicle drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Xuesong; Xing, Yilun; Luo, Lian; Yu, Rongjie

    2018-08-01

    Risky driving behavior is one of the main causes of commercial vehicle related crashes. In order to achieve safer vehicle operation, safety education for drivers is often provided. However, the education programs vary in quality and may not always be successful in reducing crash rates. Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) education is a popular approach found effective by numerous studies, but even this approach varies as to the combination of frequency, mode and content used by different education providers. This study therefore evaluates and compares the effectiveness of BBS education methods. Thirty-five drivers in Shanghai, China, were coached with one of three different BBS education methods for 13 weeks following a 13-week baseline phase with no education. A random-effects negative binomial (NB) model was built and calibrated to investigate the relationship between BBS education and the driver at-fault safety-related event rate. Based on the results of the random-effects NB model, event modification factors (EMF) were calculated to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of the methods. Results show that (1) BBS education was confirmed to be effective in safety-related event reduction; (2) the most effective method among the three applied monthly face-to-face coaching, including feedback with video and statistical data, and training on strategies to avoid driver-specific unsafe behaviors; (3) weekly telephone coaching using statistics and strategies was rated by drivers as the most convenient delivery mode, and was also significantly effective. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Increased neurofibrillary tangles in the brains of older pedestrians killed in traffic accidents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gorrie, C A; Rodriguez, M; Sachdev, P; Duflou, J; Waite, P M E

    2006-01-01

    Older people are over-represented in pedestrian fatalities, and it has been suggested that the presence of cognitive impairment or dementia in these individuals may contribute to their accidents. Using neuropathological methods, we aimed to compare the prevalence of dementia pathology in fatally injured older pedestrians with similarly aged ambulatory subjects who died from other causes. The brains of 52 pedestrians (65-93 years) and 52 controls (65-92 years) were assessed for neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), neuritic plaques, Lewy bodies and vascular lesions using established neuropathological criteria. The examination for Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology showed that 43% of the pedestrians had NFT scores of III-VI using Braak and Braak staging, compared with 23% of the controls (p vascular dementia or dementia with Lewy bodies. These results suggest that cognitive decline associated with AD, even in the earliest stages of the disease, may be a factor in fatal traffic accidents for older pedestrians. Special measures for pedestrian safety are necessary in areas with high densities of older citizens and especially for those diagnosed as having a mild cognitive impairment or AD.

  20. Occupational driver safety: conceptualising a leadership-based intervention to improve safe driving performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Newnam, Sharon; Lewis, Ioni; Watson, Barry

    2012-03-01

    Occupational driving crashes are the most common cause of death and injury in the workplace. The physical and psychological outcomes following injury are also very costly to organizations. Thus, safe driving poses a managerial challenge. Some research has attempted to address this issue through modifying discrete and often simple target behaviours (e.g., driver training programs). However, current intervention approaches in the occupational driving field generally consider the role of organizational factors in workplace safety. This study adopts the A-B-C framework to identify the contingencies associated with an effective exchange of safety information within the occupational driving context. Utilizing a sample of occupational drivers and their supervisors, this multi-level study examines the contingencies associated with the exchange of safety information within the supervisor-driver relationship. Safety values are identified as an antecedent of the safety information exchange, and the quality of the leader-member exchange relationship and safe driving performance is identified as the behavioural consequences. We also examine the function of role overload as a factor influencing the relationship between safety values and the safety information exchange. Hierarchical linear modelling found that role overload moderated the relationship between supervisors' perceptions of the value given to safety and the safety information exchange. A significant relationship was also found between the safety information exchange and the subsequent quality of the leader-member exchange relationship. Finally, the quality of the leader-member exchange relationship was found to be significantly associated with safe driving performance. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Older Driver Safety: A Survey of Psychologists' Attitudes, Knowledge, and Practices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Love, Janet; Tuokko, Holly

    2016-09-01

    Using an online survey, we examined the knowledge, attitudes, and practices with respect to older driver safety concerns of clinical psychologists from across Canada who self-identified as working with at least some drivers over 60 years of age. Eighty-four psychologists completed the survey, and many were aware of the issues relevant to older driver safety, although only about half reported that assessing fitness to drive was an important issue in their practice. The majority (75%) reported that they would benefit from education concerning evaluation of fitness to drive. The primary recommendation emerging from this investigation is to increase efforts to inform and educate psychologists about driving-related assessment and regulatory issues in general, and specifically with respect to older adults. As the population ages, it is of growing importance for all health care providers to understand the influence of mental health conditions-including cognitive impairment and dementia-on driving skills.

  2. Analysis of pedestrian accident costs in Sudan using the willingness-to-pay method.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mofadal, Adam I A; Kanitpong, Kunnawee; Jiwattanakulpaisarn, Piyapong

    2015-05-01

    The willingness-to-pay (WTP) with contingent valuation (CV) method has been proven to be a valid tool for the valuation of non-market goods or socio-economic costs of road traffic accidents among communities in developed and developing countries. Research on accident costing tends to estimate the value of statistical life (VOSL) for all road users by providing a principle for the evaluation of road safety interventions in cost-benefit analysis. As in many other developing countries, the economic loss of traffic accidents in Sudan is noticeable; however, analytical research to estimate the magnitude and impact of that loss is lacking. Reports have shown that pedestrians account for more than 40% of the total number of fatalities. In this study, the WTP-CV approach was used to determine the amount of money that pedestrians in Sudan are willing to pay to reduce the risk of their own death. The impact of the socioeconomic factors, risk levels, and walking behaviors of pedestrians on their WTP for fatality risk reduction was also evaluated. Data were collected from two cities-Khartoum and Nyala-using a survey questionnaire that included 1400 respondents. The WTP-CV Payment Card Questionnaire was designed to ensure that Sudan pedestrians can easily determine the amount of money that would be required to reduce the fatality risk from a pedestrian-related accident. The analysis results show that the estimated VOSL for Sudanese pedestrians ranges from US$0.019 to US$0.101 million. In addition, the willingness-to-pay by Sudanese pedestrians to reduce their fatality risk tends to increase with age, household income, educational level, safety perception, and average time spent on social activities with family and community. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. A Framework for Function Allocation in Intelligent Driver Interface Design for Comfort and Safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wuhong Wang

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a conceptual framework for ecological function allocation and optimization matching solution for a human-machine interface with intelligent characteristics by lwho does what and when and howr consideration. As a highlighted example in nature-social system, intelligent transportation system has been playing increasingly role in keeping traffic safety, our research is concerned with identifying human factors problem of In-vehicle Support Systems (ISSs and revealing the consequence of the effects of ISSs on driver cognitive interface. The primary objective is to explore some new ergonomics principals that will be able to use to design an intelligent driver interface for comfort and safety, which will address the impact of driver interfaces layouts, traffic information types, and driving behavioral factors on the advanced vehicles safety design.

  4. Potential of pedestrian protection systems--a parameter study using finite element models of pedestrian dummy and generic passenger vehicles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fredriksson, Rikard; Shin, Jaeho; Untaroiu, Costin D

    2011-08-01

    To study the potential of active, passive, and integrated (combined active and passive) safety systems in reducing pedestrian upper body loading in typical impact configurations. Finite element simulations using models of generic sedan car fronts and the Polar II pedestrian dummy were performed for 3 impact configurations at 2 impact speeds. Chest contact force, head injury criterion (HIC(15)), head angular acceleration, and the cumulative strain damage measure (CSDM(0.25)) were employed as injury parameters. Further, 3 countermeasures were modeled: an active autonomous braking system, a passive deployable countermeasure, and an integrated system combining the active and passive systems. The auto-brake system was modeled by reducing impact speed by 10 km/h (equivalent to ideal full braking over 0.3 s) and introducing a pitch of 1 degree and in-crash deceleration of 1 g. The deployable system consisted of a deployable hood, lifting 100 mm in the rear, and a lower windshield air bag. All 3 countermeasures showed benefit in a majority of impact configurations in terms of injury prevention. The auto-brake system reduced chest force in a majority of the configurations and decreased HIC(15), head angular acceleration, and CSDM in all configurations. Averaging all impact configurations, the auto-brake system showed reductions of injury predictors from 20 percent (chest force) to 82 percent (HIC). The passive deployable countermeasure reduced chest force and HIC(15) in a majority of configurations and head angular acceleration and CSDM in all configurations, although the CSDM decrease in 2 configurations was minimal. On average a reduction from 20 percent (CSDM) to 58 percent (HIC) was recorded in the passive deployable countermeasures. Finally, the integrated system evaluated in this study reduced all injury assessment parameters in all configurations compared to the reference situations. The average reductions achieved by the integrated system ranged from 56 percent

  5. The impact of personality on driving safety among Chinese high-speed railway drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Ming; Wei, Wei; Liao, Ganli; Chu, Fulei

    2016-07-01

    This study explored the impact of personality traits on driving safety in high-speed railway drivers. A sample of high-speed railway drivers in Beijing (N=214) completed a questionnaire, including information on personality traits and background variables. The NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) was administered to characterize participants based on five personality traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, and Conscientiousness. The survey data were combined with naturalistic data of accident involvement and risky driving behavior in China. Poisson regression results show that drivers with high Conscientiousness and Extraversion caused fewer accidents. Higher Conscientiousness and lower Agreeableness were related to less frequent risky driving behavior. Education level and age negatively moderated the relation between certain personality traits and driving safety. The findings suggest that personality traits should be considered when selecting and training high-speed railway drivers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Research on Evaluation Model for Secondary Task Driving Safety Based on Driver Eye Movements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lisheng Jin

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This study was designed to gain insight into the influence of performing different types of secondary task while driving on driver eye movements and to build a safety evaluation model for secondary task driving. Eighteen young drivers were selected and completed the driving experiment on a driving simulator. Measures of fixations, saccades, and blinks were analyzed. Based on measures which had significant difference between the baseline and secondary tasks driving conditions, the evaluation index system was built. Method of principal component analysis (PCA was applied to analyze evaluation indexes data in order to obtain the coefficient weights of indexes and build the safety evaluation model. Based on evaluation scores, the driving safety was grouped into five levels (very high, high, average, low, and very low using K-means clustering algorithm. Results showed that secondary task driving severely distracts the driver and the evaluation model built in this study could estimate driving safety effectively under different driving conditions.

  7. New safety systems for better impact shock protection of pedestrians; Neue Sicherheitssysteme fuer besseren Fussgaengerschutz

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Buechling, J.

    2005-06-01

    From October 2005, new vehicles in the European Union must be equipped successively with impact shock protection systems for pedestrians. There are many different concepts and solutions, from optimised front ends and flexible hoods to outside airbags, flexible shock absorbers and systems to prevent rolling over pedestrians. (orig.)

  8. Effects of transverse rumble strips on safety of pedestrian crosswalks on rural roads in China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Pan; Huang, Jia; Wang, Wei; Xu, Chengcheng

    2011-11-01

    The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the impacts of transverse rumble strips in reducing crashes and vehicle speeds at pedestrian crosswalks on rural roads in China. Using crash data reported at 366 sites, the research team conducted an observational before-after study using a comparison group and the Empirical Bayesian (EB) method to evaluate the effectiveness of transverse rumble strips in reducing crashes at pedestrian crosswalks. It was found that transverse rumble strips may reduce expected crash frequency at pedestrian crosswalks by 25%. The research team collected more than 15,000 speed observations at 12 sites. The speed data analysis results show that transverse rumble strips significantly reduce vehicle speeds in vicinity of pedestrian crosswalks on rural roads with posted speed limits of 60 km/h and 80 km/h. On average, the mean speed at pedestrian crosswalks declined 9.2 km/h on roads with a speed limit of 60 km/h; and 11.9 km/h on roads with a speed limit of 80 km/h. The 85th percentile speed declined 9.1 km/h on roads with a speed limit of 60 km/h; and 12.0 km/h on roads with a speed limit of 80 km/h. However, the speed reduction impacts were not found to be statistically significant for the pedestrian crosswalk on the road with a speed limit of 40 km/h. The study also looked extensively at the influence area of transverse rumble strips on rural roads. Speed profiles developed in this study show that the influence area of transverse rumble strips is generally less than 0.3 km. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a video game as a child pedestrian educational tool.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arbogast, Helen; Burke, Rita V; Muller, Valerie; Ruiz, Pearl; Knudson, M Margaret; Knudson, Margaret M; Upperman, Jeffrey S

    2014-05-01

    Injury is the number one cause of death and disability in children in the United States and an increasingly important public health problem globally. While prevention of injuries is an important goal, prevention efforts are currently fragmented, poorly funded, and rarely studied. Among school-aged children, pedestrian crashes are a major mechanism of injury. We hypothesized that we could develop a game-based educational tool that would be effective in teaching elementary school children the principles of pedestrian safety. Between November 2011 and June 2013, second- and third-grade children in Los Angeles Unified School District were randomly assigned to play a unique interactive video game (Ace's Adventure) about pedestrian safety or to a traditional didactic session about pedestrian safety. A pretest and posttest were administered to the study participants. Afterward, study participants were observed for appropriate pedestrian behavior on a simulated street set called Street Smarts. All statistical analyses were performed using SAS version 9.2. A total of 348 study participants took the pretest and posttest. There were 180 who were randomized to the didactic and 168 who were randomized to the video game. The didactic group demonstrated a higher mean score increase (1.01, p video game group (0.44, p video game, as compared with the didactic group, more frequently exhibited appropriate behavior during the following: exiting a parked car (p = 0.01), signaling to a car that was backing up (p = 0.01), signaling to a stopped car (p = 0.0002), and crossing the street (p = 0.01). Students who played the educational video game about pedestrian safety performed similarly to those who attended a more traditional and labor-intensive didactic learning. Innovative educational methods, such as game playing, could significantly change our approach to injury prevention and have the potential to decrease the burden of injury among children worldwide.

  10. Evaluation of Driver Visibility from Mobile LIDAR Data and Weather Conditions

    Science.gov (United States)

    González-Jorge, H.; Díaz-Vilariño, L.; Lorenzo, H.; Arias, P.

    2016-06-01

    Visibility of drivers is crucial to ensure road safety. Visibility is influenced by two main factors, the geometry of the road and the weather present therein. The present work depicts an approach for automatic visibility evaluation using mobile LiDAR data and climate information provided from weather stations located in the neighbourhood of the road. The methodology is based on a ray-tracing algorithm to detect occlusions from point clouds with the purpose of identifying the visibility area from each driver position. The resulting data are normalized with the climate information to provide a polyline with an accurate area of visibility. Visibility ranges from 25 m (heavy fog) to more than 10,000 m (clean atmosphere). Values over 250 m are not taken into account for road safety purposes, since this value corresponds to the maximum braking distance of a vehicle. Two case studies are evaluated an urban road in the city of Vigo (Spain) and an inter-urban road between the city of Ourense and the village of Castro Caldelas (Spain). In both cases, data from the Galician Weather Agency (Meteogalicia) are used. The algorithm shows promising results allowing the detection of particularly dangerous areas from the viewpoint of driver visibility. The mountain road between Ourense and Castro Caldelas, with great presence of slopes and sharp curves, shows special interest for this type of application. In this case, poor visibility can especially contribute to the run over of pedestrians or cyclists traveling on the road shoulders.

  11. ANALYSIS OF SPATIO-TEMPORAL TRAFFIC PATTERNS BASED ON PEDESTRIAN TRAJECTORIES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Busch

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available For driver assistance and autonomous driving systems, it is essential to predict the behaviour of other traffic participants. Usually, standard filter approaches are used to this end, however, in many cases, these are not sufficient. For example, pedestrians are able to change their speed or direction instantly. Also, there may be not enough observation data to determine the state of an object reliably, e.g. in case of occlusions. In those cases, it is very useful if a prior model exists, which suggests certain outcomes. For example, it is useful to know that pedestrians are usually crossing the road at a certain location and at certain times. This information can then be stored in a map which then can be used as a prior in scene analysis, or in practical terms to reduce the speed of a vehicle in advance in order to minimize critical situations. In this paper, we present an approach to derive such a spatio-temporal map automatically from the observed behaviour of traffic participants in everyday traffic situations. In our experiments, we use one stationary camera to observe a complex junction, where cars, public transportation and pedestrians interact. We concentrate on the pedestrians trajectories to map traffic patterns. In the first step, we extract trajectory segments from the video data. These segments are then clustered in order to derive a spatial model of the scene, in terms of a spatially embedded graph. In the second step, we analyse the temporal patterns of pedestrian movement on this graph. We are able to derive traffic light sequences as well as the timetables of nearby public transportation. To evaluate our approach, we used a 4 hour video sequence. We show that we are able to derive traffic light sequences as well as time tables of nearby public transportation.

  12. Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Traffic Patterns Based on Pedestrian Trajectories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Busch, S.; Schindler, T.; Klinger, T.; Brenner, C.

    2016-06-01

    For driver assistance and autonomous driving systems, it is essential to predict the behaviour of other traffic participants. Usually, standard filter approaches are used to this end, however, in many cases, these are not sufficient. For example, pedestrians are able to change their speed or direction instantly. Also, there may be not enough observation data to determine the state of an object reliably, e.g. in case of occlusions. In those cases, it is very useful if a prior model exists, which suggests certain outcomes. For example, it is useful to know that pedestrians are usually crossing the road at a certain location and at certain times. This information can then be stored in a map which then can be used as a prior in scene analysis, or in practical terms to reduce the speed of a vehicle in advance in order to minimize critical situations. In this paper, we present an approach to derive such a spatio-temporal map automatically from the observed behaviour of traffic participants in everyday traffic situations. In our experiments, we use one stationary camera to observe a complex junction, where cars, public transportation and pedestrians interact. We concentrate on the pedestrians trajectories to map traffic patterns. In the first step, we extract trajectory segments from the video data. These segments are then clustered in order to derive a spatial model of the scene, in terms of a spatially embedded graph. In the second step, we analyse the temporal patterns of pedestrian movement on this graph. We are able to derive traffic light sequences as well as the timetables of nearby public transportation. To evaluate our approach, we used a 4 hour video sequence. We show that we are able to derive traffic light sequences as well as time tables of nearby public transportation.

  13. Effects of mobile Internet use on college student pedestrian injury risk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Byington, Katherine W; Schwebel, David C

    2013-03-01

    College-age individuals have the highest incidence of pedestrian injuries of any age cohort. One factor that might contribute to elevated pedestrian injuries among this age group is injuries incurred while crossing streets distracted by mobile devices. Examine whether young adult pedestrian safety is compromised while crossing a virtual pedestrian street while distracted using the Internet on a mobile "smartphone." A within-subjects design was implemented with 92 young adults. Participants crossed a virtual pedestrian street 20 times, half the time while undistracted and half while completing an email-driven "scavenger hunt" to answer mundane questions using mobile Internet on their cell phones. Six measures of pedestrian behavior were assessed during crossings. Participants also reported typical patterns of street crossing and mobile Internet use. Participants reported using mobile Internet with great frequency in daily life, including while walking across streets. In the virtual street environment, pedestrian behavior was greatly altered and generally more risky when participants were distracted by Internet use. While distracted, participants waited longer to cross the street (F=42.37), missed more safe opportunities to cross (F=42.63), took longer to initiate crossing when a safe gap was available (F=53.03), looked left and right less often (F=124.68), spent more time looking away from the road (F=1959.78), and were more likely to be hit or almost hit by an oncoming vehicle (F=29.54; all psmobile Internet experience. Pedestrian behavior was influenced, and generally considerably riskier, when participants were simultaneously using mobile Internet and crossing the street than when crossing the street with no distraction. This finding reinforces the need for increased awareness concerning the risks of distracted pedestrian behavior. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. The use of commercial advertising on large scale electronic billboards for highways and their relation to driver safety and driver distraction, literature review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-07-01

    The potential for driver distraction on highways is a major safety concern for state : departments of transportation (DOTs). In the current technological climate, drivers have : the potential to be distracted by cell phones, mp3 players and other med...

  15. Safety concepts for the design of transport and traffic facilities for pedestrians, cyclists, children and disabled in urban areas. Contribution to the 5th National Congress on Traffic Safety, Barcelona, Spain, November 24-26, 1982.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Asmussen, E.

    1982-01-01

    The "vulnerable" road users, pedestrians, cyclists, children and disabled in urban -areas mainly are victims of motorised traffic. The intensity and speed of this motorized traffic are the main agents for the unsafety of the "vulnerable" road users. Safety concepts for urban areas should be directed

  16. Ici, la priorité est aux piétons / Pedestrians have the right of way at CERN

    CERN Multimedia

    2002-01-01

    Au CERN, nous sommes tous piétons, très souvent automobilistes et parfois cyclistes. Mais peu importe notre moyen de locomotion si l'on reste vigilant et si l'on se rappelle que le piéton est un usager de la route à part entière, mais plus vulnérable. / At CERN, we are all pedestrians, often drivers, and occasionally cyclists. But our means of locomotion do no matter so long as we exercise caution and remember that a pedestrian has equal rights as a roa user, except than that he runs greater risks.

  17. Part-based Pedestrian Detection and Feature-based Tracking for Driver Assistance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Prioletti, Antonio; Møgelmose, Andreas; Grislieri, Paolo

    2013-01-01

    Detecting pedestrians is still a challenging task for automotive vision systems due to the extreme variability of targets, lighting conditions, occlusion, and high-speed vehicle motion. Much research has been focused on this problem in the last ten years and detectors based on classifiers have...... on a prototype vehicle and offers high performance in terms of several metrics, such as detection rate, false positives per hour, and frame rate. The novelty of this system relies on the combination of a HOG part-based approach, tracking based on a specific optimized feature, and porting on a real prototype....

  18. Crash risk and aberrant driving behaviors among bus drivers: the role of personality and attitudes towards traffic safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mallia, Luca; Lazuras, Lambros; Violani, Cristiano; Lucidi, Fabio

    2015-06-01

    Several studies have shown that personality traits and attitudes toward traffic safety predict aberrant driving behaviors and crash involvement. However, this process has not been adequately investigated in professional drivers, such as bus drivers. The present study used a personality-attitudes model to assess whether personality traits predicted aberrant self-reported driving behaviors (driving violations, lapses, and errors) both directly and indirectly, through the effects of attitudes towards traffic safety in a large sample of bus drivers. Additionally, the relationship between aberrant self-reported driving behaviors and crash risk was also assessed. Three hundred and one bus drivers (mean age=39.1, SD=10.7 years) completed a structured and anonymous questionnaire measuring personality traits, attitudes toward traffic safety, self-reported aberrant driving behaviors (i.e., errors, lapses, and traffic violations), and accident risk in the last 12 months. Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that personality traits were associated to aberrant driving behaviors both directly and indirectly. In particular altruism, excitement seeking, and normlessness directly predicted bus drivers' attitudes toward traffic safety which, in turn, were negatively associated with the three types of self-reported aberrant driving behaviors. Personality traits relevant to emotionality directly predicted bus drivers' aberrant driving behaviors, without any mediation of attitudes. Finally, only self-reported violations were related to bus drivers' accident risk. The present findings suggest that the hypothesized personality-attitudes model accounts for aberrant driving behaviors in bus drivers, and provide the empirical basis for evidence-based road safety interventions in the context of public transport. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. 76 FR 75940 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-12-05

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  20. 76 FR 2190 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-12

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... acknowledgment that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  1. 77 FR 46795 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-08-06

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  2. 75 FR 79081 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-12-17

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  3. 76 FR 1499 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-10

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  4. 77 FR 541 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-05

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... made a determination to grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the...

  5. 76 FR 29024 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-05-19

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  6. 76 FR 20078 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-04-11

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... acknowledgment that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  7. 76 FR 5425 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-31

    .... Moreover, driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  8. 75 FR 22176 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-27

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... grant exemptions to each of them. Vision and Driving Experience of the Applicants The vision requirement...

  9. Driver and vehicle type parameters' contribution to traffic safety in UAE

    OpenAIRE

    Alkheder,Sharaf A.; Sabouni,Reem; El Naggar,Hany; Sabouni,Abdul Rahim

    2013-01-01

    Former traffic safety studies showed clearly that driver or human factor is a major contributor to road accidents. Hence, to better understand the traffic accident nature it's so vital to analyze all characteristics related to drivers involved in these accidents. This article focuses on this aspect through using a dataset representing UAE traffic accidents in the time interval between 2007 and 2010. A major focus was given in this article to analyzing the relation between traffic accidents an...

  10. Attitudinal segmentaion of drivers in Pakistan: The potential for effective road safety campaigns.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Batool, Zahara; Carsten, Oliver

    2018-05-01

    Deviant driving behaviors are considered as the main cause of Road Traffic Accidents in Pakistan. This research is founded on the premise that driving behaviors are mediated by attitudinal and motivational factors. It advocates that rather than simply aggregating drivers' responses or a-priori classification of them based on their personal characteristics, adoption of segmentation technique is more useful to look at multiple factors provoking aberrant driving behavior in combination and not just in isolation. For this, the study generated an Attitudinal Questionnaire, inspired by the Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB: Ajzen, 1991), and extended violation-scale of modified Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ: Lawton et al., 1997). Attitudinal and behavioral items are first factor analyzed. Then, cluster analysis is performed on extracted attitudinal factors which classified sample driving population into four relatively homogenous and distinct groups of drivers. The results demonstrated the explanatory utility of the market segmentation approach to systematically relate the interaction between attitudes, behaviors and socio-demographic characteristics of drivers. It is concluded that the approach is successful in distinguishing safe drivers from unsafe driver and therefore, can legitimately form the basis of road safety interventions. Finally, the findings are used to recommend targeted information-based road safety solutions with a focus on the diverse characteristics of each of the identified segments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Video-processing-based system for automated pedestrian data collection and analysis when crossing the street

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mansouri, Nabila; Watelain, Eric; Ben Jemaa, Yousra; Motamed, Cina

    2018-03-01

    Computer-vision techniques for pedestrian detection and tracking have progressed considerably and become widely used in several applications. However, a quick glance at the literature shows a minimal use of these techniques in pedestrian behavior and safety analysis, which might be due to the technical complexities facing the processing of pedestrian videos. To extract pedestrian trajectories from a video automatically, all road users must be detected and tracked during sequences, which is a challenging task, especially in a congested open-outdoor urban space. A multipedestrian tracker based on an interframe-detection-association process was proposed and evaluated. The tracker results are used to implement an automatic tool for pedestrians data collection when crossing the street based on video processing. The variations in the instantaneous speed allowed the detection of the street crossing phases (approach, waiting, and crossing). These were addressed for the first time in the pedestrian road security analysis to illustrate the causal relationship between pedestrian behaviors in the different phases. A comparison with a manual data collection method, by computing the root mean square error and the Pearson correlation coefficient, confirmed that the procedures proposed have significant potential to automate the data collection process.

  12. Pedestrian Friendly Outdoor Lighting

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Miller, N. J. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Koltai, R. N. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); McGowan, T. K. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

    2013-12-01

    The GATEWAY program followed two pedestrian-scale lighting projects that required multiple mockups – one at Stanford University in California and the other at Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. The report provides insight into pedestrian lighting criteria, how they differ from street and area lighting criteria, and how solid-state lighting can be better applied in pedestrian applications.

  13. Developing a South African pedestrian environment assessment tool: Tshwane case study

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Albers, PN

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available , restaurant and retail use Key important factors identified Appropriate walking surface, presence of destinations Public transport, services, parks, personal safety, traffic safety, streetscape and views No applied evidence available Limitations... outside petrol stations and restaurants may instil a sense of safety for pedestrians walking in a commercial area. Several limitations were identified during the application of SPACES, SWAT and PEQI to test their applicability, ease of use, robustness...

  14. Safety Risk of Mobile Phone Use while Driving in Sample of Taxi Drivers

    OpenAIRE

    Murat Darçın; Murat Alkan

    2015-01-01

    Previous research has shown that mobile phone use while driving increases the risk of being involved in an accident. This paper investigates the reported frequency of taxi drivers' mobile phone use and its effects on traffic safety. A representative sample of taxi drivers was included in an interview-based survey by trained interviewers. It was found that 81% of the taxi drivers reported talking by using hand-held phone while driving. There is a relationship between the phoning while driving ...

  15. Effects of mobile phone distraction on pedestrians' crossing behavior and visual attention allocation at a signalized intersection: An outdoor experimental study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Kang; Ling, Feiyang; Feng, Zhongxiang; Ma, Changxi; Kumfer, Wesley; Shao, Chen; Wang, Kun

    2018-06-01

    With the rapid growth in mobile phone use worldwide, traffic safety experts have begun to consider the impact of mobile phone distractions on pedestrian crossing safety. This study sought to investigate how mobile phone distractions (music distraction, phone conversation distraction and text distraction) affect the behavior of pedestrians while they are crossing the street. An outdoor-environment experiment was conducted among 28 college student pedestrians. Two HD videos and an eye tracker were employed to record and analyze crossing behavior and visual attention allocation. The results of the research showed that the three mobile phone distractions cause different levels of impairment to pedestrians' crossing performance, with the greatest effect from text distraction, followed by phone conversation distraction and music distraction. Pedestrians distracted by music initiate crossing later, have increased pupil diameter, and reduce their scanning frequency, fixation points and fixation times toward traffic signal area priorities. In addition to the above effects, pedestrians distracted by phone conversation cross the street more slowly, direct fewer fixation points to the right traffic area, and spend less fixation time and lower average fixation duration on the left traffic area. Moreover, pedestrians distracted by texting look left and right less often and switch, distribute and maintain less visual attention on the traffic environment. These findings may inform researchers, policy makers, and pedestrians. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Relationships amongst psychological determinants, risk behaviour, and road crashes of young adolescent pedestrians and cyclists : implications for road safety education programmes.

    OpenAIRE

    Twisk, D.A.M. Commandeur, J.J.F. Vlakveld, W.P. Shope, J.T. & Kok, G.

    2015-01-01

    Road safety education (RSE) assumes that psychological determinants predict risk behaviour, and subsequently that risky road behaviour predicts crash involvement. This study examined the validity of this assumption, by analysing these relationships in two age groups of teen cyclists and pedestrians: a younger age group (12 and 13 years old: n = 1372) and an older age group (14–16 years old: n = 938). A questionnaire was administered at school during regular class consisting of items on demogr...

  17. Driver characteristics associated with child safety seat usage in Malaysia: a cross-sectional study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kulanthayan, S; Razak, Ahmad; Schenk, Ellen

    2010-03-01

    The rapidly motorizing environment in Malaysia has made child occupant safety a current public health concern. The usage of child safety seats (CSS) is a widely regarded intervention to enhance child occupant safety, yet no study has been conducted on CSS in Malaysia. This study aims to determine the CSS usage rates in Malaysia and to assess driver characteristics that are associated with CSS usage. Nine variables - urban versus rural study location, age, gender, marital status, educational status, monthly family income, number of children present in the vehicle, distance traveled to the study location, and attitude - were examined through a cross-sectional study of interviewing drivers of 230 vehicles transporting at least one child safety in Malaysia. The results indicate that interventional efforts should focus on educational programs geared toward drivers that are less educated or extended family members who inconsistently transport young children. Furthermore, any educational efforts could be strongly enhanced by legislation mandating the use of CSS. Every effort should be made to thoroughly assess the effectiveness of any educational or legislative activities that are implemented. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Sensorimotor and postural control factors associated with driving safety in a community-dwelling older driver population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lacherez, Philippe; Wood, Joanne M; Anstey, Kaarin J; Lord, Stephen R

    2014-02-01

    To establish whether sensorimotor function and balance are associated with on-road driving performance in older adults. The performance of 270 community-living adults aged 70-88 years recruited via the electoral roll was measured on a battery of peripheral sensation, strength, flexibility, reaction time, and balance tests and on a standardized measure of on-road driving performance. Forty-seven participants (17.4%) were classified as unsafe based on their driving assessment. Unsafe driving was associated with reduced peripheral sensation, lower limb weakness, reduced neck range of motion, slow reaction time, and poor balance in univariate analyses. Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified poor vibration sensitivity, reduced quadriceps strength, and increased sway on a foam surface with eyes closed as significant and independent risk factors for unsafe driving. These variables classified participants into safe and unsafe drivers with a sensitivity of 74% and specificity of 70%. A number of sensorimotor and balance measures were associated with driver safety and the multivariate model comprising measures of sensation, strength, and balance was highly predictive of unsafe driving in this sample. These findings highlight important determinants of driver safety and may assist in developing efficacious driver safety strategies for older drivers.

  19. Evaluating the effect of advance yield markings and symbolic signs on vehicle-pedestrian conflicts at marked midblock crosswalks across multilane roads.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-02-01

    The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has made walkable communities a priority. Pedestrian safety is key to the success of : this objective. Pedestrians are at high risk when traversing unsignalized, marked crosswalks located either midblock or at Tinter...

  20. 77 FR 27845 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-05-11

    ..., driving in congested urban areas exposes the driver to more pedestrian and vehicular traffic than exists... that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope or postcard or print... driving record for the last 3 years shows no crashes or convictions for moving violations in a CMV. It was...

  1. Safety and health of professional drivers who drive on Brazilian highways

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fernanda Veruska Narciso

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT Traffic accidents and resulting injuries and deaths have become a global epidemic. In Brazil, most professional drivers, especially truck drivers, face irregular working hours and can be awake for more than 18 hours/day, which reduces their performance and alertness. In this article, we discuss the laws related to Brazilian professional drivers and their current amendments (No. 12,619/2012 and No. 13,103/2015 in relation to working hours at the wheel and rest breaks, which are vital for the quality of life of drivers and society in general. We note that the new law appears to be less efficient than the previous one as it causes insecurity and concern to the users of the transportation system, drivers, and employers. To restrict and reduce accidents, deaths, and injuries in traffic, appropriate legislation is essential, aiming at the safety of workers and users of highways. The law must also benefit the commercial aspect, strengthening the reduction in production and logistics losses. Additionally, traffic education programs are needed, as well as better supervision in relation to total working hours.

  2. EVALUATION OF DRIVER VISIBILITY FROM MOBILE LIDAR DATA AND WEATHER CONDITIONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. González-Jorge

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Visibility of drivers is crucial to ensure road safety. Visibility is influenced by two main factors, the geometry of the road and the weather present therein. The present work depicts an approach for automatic visibility evaluation using mobile LiDAR data and climate information provided from weather stations located in the neighbourhood of the road. The methodology is based on a ray-tracing algorithm to detect occlusions from point clouds with the purpose of identifying the visibility area from each driver position. The resulting data are normalized with the climate information to provide a polyline with an accurate area of visibility. Visibility ranges from 25 m (heavy fog to more than 10,000 m (clean atmosphere. Values over 250 m are not taken into account for road safety purposes, since this value corresponds to the maximum braking distance of a vehicle. Two case studies are evaluated an urban road in the city of Vigo (Spain and an inter-urban road between the city of Ourense and the village of Castro Caldelas (Spain. In both cases, data from the Galician Weather Agency (Meteogalicia are used. The algorithm shows promising results allowing the detection of particularly dangerous areas from the viewpoint of driver visibility. The mountain road between Ourense and Castro Caldelas, with great presence of slopes and sharp curves, shows special interest for this type of application. In this case, poor visibility can especially contribute to the run over of pedestrians or cyclists traveling on the road shoulders.

  3. Mobility and safety issues in drivers with dementia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carr, David B; O'Neill, Desmond

    2015-10-01

    Although automobiles remain the mobility method of choice for older adults, late-life cognitive impairment and progressive dementia will eventually impair the ability to meet transport needs of many. There is, however, no commonly utilized method of assessing dementia severity in relation to driving, no consensus on the specific types of assessments that should be applied to older drivers with cognitive impairment, and no gold standard for determining driving fitness or approaching loss of mobility and subsequent counseling. Yet, clinicians are often called upon by patients, their families, health professionals, and driver licensing authorities to assess their patients' fitness-to-drive and to make recommendations about driving privileges. We summarize the literature on dementia and driving, discuss evidenced-based assessments of fitness-to-drive, and outline the important ethical and legal concerns. We address the role of physician assessment, referral to neuropsychology, functional screens, dementia severity tools, driving evaluation clinics, and driver licensing authority referrals that may assist clinicians with an evaluation. Finally, we discuss mobility counseling (e.g. exploration of transportation alternatives) since health professionals need to address this important issue for older adults who lose the ability to drive. The application of a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to the older driver with cognitive impairment will have the best opportunity to enhance our patients' social connectedness and quality of life, while meeting their psychological and medical needs and maintaining personal and public safety.

  4. Assisting the older driver : intersection design and in-car devices to improve the safety of the older driver. Proefschrift Rijksuniversiteit Groningen RUG, Groningen.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Davidse, R.J.

    2007-01-01

    In this thesis, the main focus was on assistive devices that may improve and prolong the safe mobility of older drivers. Older drivers form a group of road users that is getting more and more attention in road safety research and policy. An important reason for this growing interest is the increase

  5. Motorcycle safety among motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists in developing countries: A case study of Maoming, South China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Connor Y H; Loo, Becky P Y

    2016-01-01

    An increasing number of motorcycle taxis have been involved in traffic crashes in many developing countries. This study examines the characteristics of both motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists, investigates the risks they pose to road safety, and provides recommendations to minimize their risks. Based on the data collected from a questionnaire survey of 867 motorcycle taxi drivers and 2,029 nonoccupational motorcyclists in Maoming, South China, comparisons were made to analyze differences of personal attributes, attitudes toward road safety, and self-reported behavior of the 2 groups. Results of the chi-square tests show that not only motorcycle taxi drivers but also nonoccupational motorcyclists in Maoming held poor attitudes toward road safety and both groups reported unsafe driving behavior. There is much room for improving local road safety education among all motorcyclists in Maoming. Yet, motorcycle taxi drivers were more likely to pose road safety risks than nonoccupational motorcyclists under some circumstances, such as speeding late at night or early in the morning, not requiring passengers to wear helmets, and running a red light. The results of the binary logistic regression model show that possessing a vehicle license for a motorcycle or not was the common significant predictor for unsafe driving behavior of motorcycle taxi drivers and nonoccupational motorcyclists. Therefore, enforcement against all motorcyclists not showing vehicle licenses for their motorcycles should be stepped up. Motorcycle safety is largely poor in Maoming. Therefore, efforts to improve motorcycle safety should be strengthened by targeting not only motorcycle taxi drivers but also nonoccupational motorcyclists.

  6. Using naturalistic driving data to explore the association between traffic safety-related events and crash risk at driver level.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Kun-Feng; Aguero-Valverde, Jonathan; Jovanis, Paul P

    2014-11-01

    There has been considerable research conducted over the last 40 years using traffic safety-related events to support road safety analyses. Dating back to traffic conflict studies from the 1960s these observational studies of driver behavior have been criticized due to: poor quality data; lack of available and useful exposure measures linked to the observations; the incomparability of self-reported safety-related events; and, the difficulty in assessing culpability for safety-related events. This study seeks to explore the relationships between driver characteristics and traffic safety-related events, and between traffic safety-related events and crash involvement while mitigating some of those limitations. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study dataset, in which the participants' vehicles were instrumented with various cameras and sensors during the study period, was used for this study. The study data set includes 90 drivers observed for 12-13 months driving. This study focuses on single vehicle run-off-road safety-related events only, including 14 crashes and 182 safety-related events (30 near crashes, and 152 crash-relevant incidents). Among the findings are: (1) drivers under age 25 are significantly more likely to be involved in safety-related events and crashes; and (2) significantly positive correlations exist between crashes, near crashes, and crash-relevant incidents. Although there is still much to learn about the factors affecting the positive correlation between safety-related events and crashes, a Bayesian multivariate Poisson log-normal model is shown to be useful to quantify the associations between safety-related events and crash risk while controlling for driver characteristics. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. Facilitating improved road safety based on increased knowledge about driving behaviour and profiling sub-groups of drivers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Martinussen, Laila Marianne

    The aim of the Ph.D. study presented in this thesis was to facilitate improved road safety through increased understanding of methods used to measure driving behaviour, and through increased knowledge about driving behaviour in sub-groups of drivers. More specifically, the usefulness of the Driver...... with underlying mechanisms of lack of focus, emotional stress, recklessness and confusion, and hence it is highly important to further explore means to making drivers become more focused or attentive when driving, and to deal with emotional responses in traffic like impatience and frustration (Article 1). 2......, indicating that the problem lies in the drivers’ attitudes towards safety (Article 3). 6. It is indicated that rather than viewing safety and risk as two ends of a continuum, safety and risk should be understood as two separate constructs, with different underlying motives. Therefore it is suggested...

  8. Distracted pedestrian sustains orbital fracture while on cell phone.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edell, Aimée R; Jung, Jesse J; Solomon, Joel M; Palu, Richard N

    2013-01-01

    Use of cell phones in the general population has become increasingly commonplace. The distracting effects of cell phones among automobile drivers are well established, and legislation prohibits the use of handheld cell phones while driving in several states. Recent research has focused on the similar distracting effects of cell phones in the pedestrian population. In this report, an older gentleman suffered extensive facial trauma requiring surgery as a direct effect of cell phone use at the time the trauma occurred. This case highlights the role that portable electronic devices can play as a cause of ocular trauma.

  9. Development of Model for Pedestrian Gap Based on Land Use Pattern at Midblock Location and Estimation of Delay at Intersections

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramesh, Adepu; Ashritha, Kilari; Kumar, Molugaram

    2018-04-01

    Walking has always been a prime source of human mobility for short distance travel. Traffic congestion has become a major problem for safe pedestrian crossing in most of the metropolitan cities. This has emphasized for providing a sufficient pedestrian gap for safe crossing on urban road. The present works aims in understanding factors that influence pedestrian crossing behaviour. Four locations were chosen for identification of pedestrian crossing behaviour, gap characteristics, waiting time etc., in Hyderabad city. From the study it was observed that pedestrian behaviour and crossing patterns are different and is influenced by land use pattern. A gap acceptance model was developed from the data for improving pedestrian safety at mid-block location; the model was validated using the existing data. Pedestrian delay was estimated at intersection using Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). It was observed that field delays are less when compared to delay arrived from HCM method.

  10. Evaluation of intelligent transport systems impact on school transport safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jankowska-Karpa Dagmara

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The integrated system of safe transport of children to school using Intelligent Transport Systems was developed and implemented in four locations across Europe under the Safeway2School (SW2S project, funded by the EU. The SW2S system evaluation included speed measurements and an eye-tracking experiment carried out among drivers who used the school bus route, where selected elements of the system were tested. The subject of the evaluation were the following system elements: pedestrian safety system at the bus stop (Intelligent Bus Stop and tags for children, Driver Support System, applications for parents’ and students’ mobile phones, bus stop inventory tool and data server. A new sign designed for buses and bus stops to inform about child transportation/children waiting at the bus stop was added to the system. Training schemes for system users were also provided. The article presents evaluation results of the impact of selected elements of the SW2S system on school transport safety in Poland.

  11. Exploring road design factors influencing tram road safety - Melbourne tram driver focus groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Naznin, Farhana; Currie, Graham; Logan, David

    2018-01-01

    Melbourne, Australia has the largest tram/streetcar network in the world including the largest mixed traffic tram operating environment. Therefore, Melbourne tram drivers are responsible for controlling one of the heaviest vehicles on road ranging from shared tram lanes to exclusive tram lanes. In addition to different tram lane configurations, tram drivers need to follow different traffic signal phases at intersections including tram priority signals as well as need to serve passengers at various types of closely spaced tram stops. Despite all these challenges, no research has explored tram driver perceptions of the risk factors on different tram route road design configurations. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate how tram drivers' safety perceptions alter along various tram route sections, signal settings and stop configurations. A tram driver focus group approach was adopted for this research involving thirty tram drivers (4 female and 26 male drivers). The tram drivers' age ranged from 29 to 63 years, with an average age of 47.6 years (standard deviation of 10.1 years), and their experience of tram driving ranged from 1.17 to 31 years, with an average experience of 12.5 years (standard deviation of 10.2 years). The participating tram drivers perceived that the raised tram tracks and tramways with raised yellow curbing beside tracks are safer lane priority features on the Melbourne tram network compared to full-time, part-time and mixed traffic tram lanes. They regarded 'hook turns' as a safe form of tram signal priority treatment at intersections and platform tram stops as the safest tram stop design for all passengers among all other tram stop designs in Melbourne. Findings of this research could enhance the understanding of crash risk factors for different tram route features and thus can offer effective planning strategies for transit agencies to improve tram road safety. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Study on Evaluation Indicators System of Crowd Management for Transfer Stations Based on Pedestrian Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guanghou Zhang

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Improving safety and convenience of transfer is one of the most vital tasks in subway system planning, design and operation management. Because of complicated space layout and crowded pedestrian, crowd control is a big challenge for management of transfer stations. Thus, a quantitative evaluation should be done before improvement measures are carried out. Literature review showed that present evaluation indicators about crowd management in subway system were all based on fixed value or experience. Dynamic effect caused by pedestrian congestion and various facility combination cannot be represented based on these indicators. Thus, in this paper, based on the pedestrian simulation tool, dynamic evaluation indicators system of crowd management was established from the point of safety, cost-effectiveness and comfort. In order to aid decision makers to identify the most appropriate scenario to improve the effectiveness of crowd management, Matter-Element Analysis (MEA was used to rate different scenarios. A pedestrian simulation model of a designing intermodal transfer station was built and four different scenarios were tested to demonstrate how to use this indicators system. Simulation results were evaluated based on the dynamic indicators system and MEA. The application results show that the dynamic evaluation indicators system is operational and can reflect level of the crowd management in transfer station comprehensively and precisely.

  13. Underpasses for pedestrians and cyclists : User requirements and implications for design

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Voordt, D.J.M.; van Wegen, H.B.R.

    1983-01-01

    In The Netherlands growing attention is being paid to slow traffic facilities. In order to increase road safety many municipalities build or intend to build underpasses for pedestrians and cyclists. However, such traffic solutions have disadvantages, too. Often people manifest feelings of being

  14. Correlation Between Euro NCAP Pedestrian Test Results and Injury Severity in Injury Crashes with Pedestrians and Bicyclists in Sweden.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strandroth, Johan; Sternlund, Simon; Lie, Anders; Tingvall, Claes; Rizzi, Matteo; Kullgren, Anders; Ohlin, Maria; Fredriksson, Rikard

    2014-11-01

    Pedestrians and bicyclists account for a significant share of deaths and serious injuries in the road transport system. The protection of pedestrians in car-to-pedestrian crashes has therefore been addressed by friendlier car fronts and since 1997, the European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) has assessed the level of protection for most car models available in Europe. In the current study, Euro NCAP pedestrian scoring was compared with real-life injury outcomes in car-to-pedestrian and car-tobicyclist crashes occurring in Sweden. Approximately 1200 injured pedestrians and 2000 injured bicyclists were included in the study. Groups of cars with low, medium and high pedestrian scores were compared with respect to pedestrian injury severity on the Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS)-level and risk of permanent medical impairment (RPMI). Significant injury reductions to both pedestrians and bicyclists were found between low and high performing cars. For pedestrians, the reduction of MAIS2+, MAIS3+, RPMI1+ and RPMI10+ ranged from 20-56% and was significant on all levels except for MAIS3+ injuries. Pedestrian head injuries had the highest reduction, 80-90% depending on level of medical impairment. For bicyclist, an injury reduction was only observed between medium and high performing cars. Significant injury reductions were found for all body regions. It was also found that cars fitted with autonomous emergency braking including pedestrian detection might have a 60-70% lower crash involvement than expected. Based on these results, it was recommended that pedestrian protection are implemented on a global scale to provide protection for vulnerable road users worldwide.

  15. Proving autonomous vehicle and advanced driver assistance systems safety : final research report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-02-15

    The main objective of this project was to provide technology for answering : crucial safety and correctness questions about verification of autonomous : vehicle and advanced driver assistance systems based on logic. : In synergistic activities, we ha...

  16. Fulfilling the pedestrian protection directive using a long-wavelength infrared camera designed to meet both performance and cost targets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Källhammer, Jan-Erik; Pettersson, Håkan; Eriksson, Dick; Junique, Stéphane; Savage, Susan; Vieider, Christian; Andersson, Jan Y.; Franks, John; Van Nylen, Jan; Vercammen, Hans; Kvisterøy, Terje; Niklaus, Frank; Stemme, Göran

    2006-04-01

    Pedestrian fatalities are around 15% of the traffic fatalities in Europe. A proposed EU regulation requires the automotive industry to develop technologies that will substantially decrease the risk for Vulnerable Road Users when hit by a vehicle. Automatic Brake Assist systems, activated by a suitable sensor, will reduce the speed of the vehicle before the impact, independent of any driver interaction. Long Wavelength Infrared technology is an ideal candidate for such sensors, but requires a significant cost reduction. The target necessary for automotive serial applications are well below the cost of systems available today. Uncooled bolometer arrays are the most mature technology for Long Wave Infrared with low-cost potential. Analyses show that sensor size and production yield along with vacuum packaging and the optical components are the main cost drivers. A project has been started to design a new Long Wave Infrared system with a ten times cost reduction potential, optimized for the pedestrian protection requirement. It will take advantage of the progress in Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems and Long Wave Infrared optics to keep the cost down. Deployable and pre-impact braking systems can become effective alternatives to passive impact protection systems solutions fulfilling the EU pedestrian protection regulation. Low-cost Long Wave Infrared sensors will be an important enabler to make such systems cost competitive, allowing high market penetration.

  17. Prevention of pedestrian accidents.

    OpenAIRE

    Kendrick, D

    1993-01-01

    Child pedestrian accidents are the most common road traffic accident resulting in injury. Much of the existing work on road traffic accidents is based on analysing clusters of accidents despite evidence that child pedestrian accidents tend to be more dispersed than this. This paper analyses pedestrian accidents in 573 children aged 0-11 years by a locally derived deprivation score for the years 1988-90. The analysis shows a significantly higher accident rate in deprived areas and a dose respo...

  18. Advanced Emergency Braking Controller Design for Pedestrian Protection Oriented Automotive Collision Avoidance System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guo Lie

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Automotive collision avoidance system, which aims to enhance the active safety of the vehicle, has become a hot research topic in recent years. However, most of the current systems ignore the active protection of pedestrian and other vulnerable groups in the transportation system. An advanced emergency braking control system is studied by taking into account the pedestrians and the vehicles. Three typical braking scenarios are defined and the safety situations are assessed by comparing the current distance between the host vehicle and the obstacle with the critical braking distance. To reflect the nonlinear time-varying characteristics and control effect of the longitudinal dynamics, the vehicle longitudinal dynamics model is established in CarSim. Then the braking controller with the structure of upper and lower layers is designed based on sliding mode control and the single neuron PID control when confronting deceleration or emergency braking conditions. Cosimulations utilizing CarSim and Simulink are finally carried out on a CarSim intelligent vehicle model to explore the effectiveness of the proposed controller. Results display that the designed controller has a good response in preventing colliding with the front vehicle or pedestrian.

  19. Advanced emergency braking controller design for pedestrian protection oriented automotive collision avoidance system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lie, Guo; Zejian, Ren; Pingshu, Ge; Jing, Chang

    2014-01-01

    Automotive collision avoidance system, which aims to enhance the active safety of the vehicle, has become a hot research topic in recent years. However, most of the current systems ignore the active protection of pedestrian and other vulnerable groups in the transportation system. An advanced emergency braking control system is studied by taking into account the pedestrians and the vehicles. Three typical braking scenarios are defined and the safety situations are assessed by comparing the current distance between the host vehicle and the obstacle with the critical braking distance. To reflect the nonlinear time-varying characteristics and control effect of the longitudinal dynamics, the vehicle longitudinal dynamics model is established in CarSim. Then the braking controller with the structure of upper and lower layers is designed based on sliding mode control and the single neuron PID control when confronting deceleration or emergency braking conditions. Cosimulations utilizing CarSim and Simulink are finally carried out on a CarSim intelligent vehicle model to explore the effectiveness of the proposed controller. Results display that the designed controller has a good response in preventing colliding with the front vehicle or pedestrian.

  20. Road safety: take it seriously

    CERN Multimedia

    Antonella Del Rosso

    2015-01-01

    Around 50 road accidents happen every year at CERN. Cyclists, drivers and pedestrians must pay attention to their behaviour at all times to ensure that this doesn’t become an even more serious problem. Even if the Laboratory’s sites are not exactly downtown Shanghai, all road users need to make a little effort. So let’s do it!   Life at CERN: let’s stick to accumulating scientific data rather than road accidents! (Cartoon by Cian O'Luanaigh) Despite a dedicated Safety Code in force since 1990, “traffic-calming” measures put in place last year, several reminders in the Bulletin and frequent safety campaigns, the number of accidents, particularly those involving cyclists, has remained high since 2008. Luckily, no-one has been seriously injured but it is more and more frequent to experience near misses or actual accidents, whether in a car or on a bike. Incivilities, excessive speeding (also for bikes!) and answering ...

  1. Design of an Active Bumper with a Series Elastic Actuator for Pedestrian Protection of Small Unmanned Vehicles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Terumasa, Narukawa; Tomoki, Tsuge; Hiroshi, Yamamoto; Takahiro, Suzuki

    2016-09-01

    When autonomous unmanned vehicles are operated on sidewalks, the vehicles must have high safety standards such as avoiding injury when they come in contact with pedestrians. In this study, we established a design for preventing serious injury when such collisions occur. We designed an active bumper with a series elastic actuator, with the goal of avoiding serious injury to a pedestrian in a collision with a small unmanned vehicle. The series elastic actuator comprised an elastic element in series with a table driven by a ball screw and servo motor. The active bumper was used to control the contact force between a vehicle and a pedestrian. The optimal force for minimizing the deflection of the object of the collision was derived, and the actuator controlled to apply this optimal force. Numerical simulations showed that the active bumper was successful in improving the collision safety of small unmanned vehicles.

  2. Priorities and Potential of Pedestrian Protection - Accident data, Experimental tests and Numerical Simulations of Car-to-Pedestrian Impacts

    OpenAIRE

    Fredriksson, Rikard

    2011-01-01

    Pedestrian disability and fatality as a consequence of car crashes is a large global health problem. To introduce maximally effective car-based countermeasures it is important to understand which injuries are most common and from which car parts they originate. It is also important to focus on the most severe injuries resulting in disability or death. The aim of this thesis was therefore to determine priorities for and evaluate the potential of car-mounted safety systems designed to mitigate ...

  3. Commercial Truck Driver Health and Safety: Exploring Distracted Driving Performance and Self-Reported Driving Skill.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stavrinos, Despina; Heaton, Karen; Welburn, Sharon C; McManus, Benjamin; Griffin, Russell; Fine, Philip R

    2016-08-01

    Reducing distracters detrimental to commercial truck driving is a critical component of improving the safety performance of commercial drivers, and makes the highways safer for all drivers. This study used a driving simulator to examine effects of cell phone, texting, and email distractions as well as self-reported driver optimism bias on the driving performance of commercial truck drivers. Results revealed that more visually demanding tasks were related to poorer driving performance. However, the cell phone task resulted in less off-the-road eye glances. Drivers reporting being "very skilled" displayed poorer driving performance than those reporting being "skilled." Onboard communication devices provide a practical, yet visually and manually demanding, solution for connecting drivers and dispatchers. Trucking company policies should minimize interaction between dispatchers and drivers when the truck is in motion. Training facilities should integrate driving simulators into the instruction of commercial drivers, targeting over-confident drivers. © 2016 The Author(s).

  4. Pedestrian ascent and descent fundamental diagram on stairway

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Juan; Lo, S. M.; Ma, Jian

    2017-08-01

    Due to the interaction among individuals, pedestrian walking speeds in relatively dense crowds when descending and ascending stairs may present different features from a single pedestrian moving freely. Thus, to obtain a large range of densities, a series of single-file pedestrian movement experiments under laboratory conditions were performed. The trends of the fundamental diagram in a wide pedestrian density range for staircase movement are captured. Detailed features of pedestrian speed with the increase of pedestrian density, headway, and the influence of pedestrians’ lateral sway are further discussed. It is found that with the increase of pedestrian density, the speed decrease rate varies. Meanwhile, the decrease of headway, leads to two speed regimes, i.e. free movement and linear constrained movement. We show that pedestrian speed can be described by counting the number of steps separating pedestrians in longitudinal direction. These enrichments can benefit pedestrian modelling and improve the evaluation of the evacuation performance of a staircase.

  5. DATA COLLECTION METHOD FOR PEDESTRIAN MOVEMENT VARIABLES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hajime Inamura

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available The need of tools for design and evaluation of pedestrian areas, subways stations, entrance hall, shopping mall, escape routes, stadium etc lead to the necessity of a pedestrian model. One approach pedestrian model is Microscopic Pedestrian Simulation Model. To be able to develop and calibrate a microscopic pedestrian simulation model, a number of variables need to be considered. As the first step of model development, some data was collected using video and the coordinate of the head path through image processing were also taken. Several numbers of variables can be gathered to describe the behavior of pedestrian from a different point of view. This paper describes how to obtain variables from video taking and simple image processing that can represent the movement of pedestrians and its variables

  6. An empirical assessment of driver motivation and emotional states in perceived safety margins under varied driving conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yu; Kaber, David B

    2013-01-01

    Motivation models in driving behaviour postulate that driver motives and emotional states dictate risk tolerance under various traffic conditions. The present study used time and driver performance-based payment systems to manipulate motivation and risk-taking behaviour. Ten participants drove to a predefined location in a simulated driving environment. Traffic patterns (density and velocity) were manipulated to cause driver behaviour adjustments due to the need to conform with the social norms of the roadway. The driving environment complexity was investigated as a mediating factor in risk tolerance. Results revealed the performance-based payment system to closely relate to risk-taking behaviour as compared with the time-based payment system. Drivers conformed with social norms associated with specific traffic patterns. Higher roadway complexity led to a more conservative safety margins and speeds. This research contributes to the further development of motivational models of driver behaviour. This study provides empirical justification for two motivation factors in driver risk-taking decisions, including compliance with social norm and emotions triggered by incentives. Environment complexity was identified as a mediating factor in motivational behaviour model. This study also recommended safety margin measures sensitive to changes in driver risk tolerance.

  7. Work-family conflict and safety participation of high-speed railway drivers: Job satisfaction as a mediator.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Wei; Guo, Ming; Ye, Long; Liao, Ganli; Yang, Zhehan

    2016-10-01

    Despite the large body of work on the work-family interface, hardly any literature has addressed the work-family interface in safety-critical settings. This study draws from social exchange theory to examine the effect of employees' strain-based work-to-family conflict on their supervisors' rating of their safety participation through job satisfaction. The sample consisted of 494 drivers from a major railway company in China. The results of a structural equation model revealed that drivers' strain-based work-to-family conflict negatively influences safety participation, and the relationship was partially mediated by job satisfaction. These findings highlight the importance of reducing employees' work-to-family conflict in safety-critical organizations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Pedestrian injury mitigation by autonomous braking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosén, Erik; Källhammer, Jan-Erik; Eriksson, Dick; Nentwich, Matthias; Fredriksson, Rikard; Smith, Kip

    2010-11-01

    The objective of this study was to calculate the potential effectiveness of a pedestrian injury mitigation system that autonomously brakes the car prior to impact. The effectiveness was measured by the reduction of fatally and severely injured pedestrians. The database from the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) was queried for pedestrians hit by the front of cars from 1999 to 2007. Case by case information on vehicle and pedestrian velocities and trajectories were analysed to estimate the field of view needed for a vehicle-based sensor to detect the pedestrians one second prior to the crash. The pre-impact braking system was assumed to activate the brakes one second prior to crash and to provide a braking deceleration up to the limit of the road surface conditions, but never to exceed 0.6 g. New impact speeds were then calculated for pedestrians that would have been detected by the sensor. These calculations assumed that all pedestrians who were within a given field of view but not obstructed by surrounding objects would be detected. The changes in fatality and severe injury risks were quantified using risk curves derived by logistic regression of the accident data. Summing the risks for all pedestrians, relationships between mitigation effectiveness, sensor field of view, braking initiation time, and deceleration were established. The study documents that the effectiveness at reducing fatally (severely) injured pedestrians in frontal collisions with cars reached 40% (27%) at a field of view of 40 degrees. Increasing the field of view further led to only marginal improvements in effectiveness. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. An extension of the theory of planned behavior to predict pedestrians' violating crossing behavior using structural equation modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Hongmei; Romero, Stephanie Ballon; Qin, Xiao

    2016-10-01

    This paper aimed to examine pedestrians' self-reported violating crossing behavior intentions by applying the theory of planned behavior (TPB). We studied the behavior intentions regarding instrumental attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, the three basic components of TPB, and extended the theory by adding new factors including descriptive norm, perceived risk and conformity tendency to evaluate their respective impacts on pedestrians' behavior intentions. A questionnaire presented with a scenario that pedestrians crossed the road violating the pedestrian lights at an intersection was designed, and the survey was conducted in Dalian, China. Based on the 260 complete and valid responses, reliability and validity of the data for each question was evaluated. The data were then analyzed by using the structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that people had a negative attitude toward the behavior of violating road-crossing rules; they perceived social influences from their family and friends; and they believed that this kind of risky behavior would potentially harm them in a traffic accident. The results also showed that instrumental attitude and subjective norm were significant in the basic TPB model. After adding descriptive norm, subjective norm was no more significant. Other models showed that conformity tendency was a strong predictor, indicating that the presence of other pedestrians would influence behavioral intention. The findings could help to design more effective interventions and safety campaigns, such as changing people's attitude toward this violation behavior, correcting the social norms, increasing their safety awareness, etc. in order to reduce pedestrians' road crossing violations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Assessing drivers' response during automated driver support system failures with non-driving tasks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Sijun; Neyens, David M

    2017-06-01

    With the increase in automated driver support systems, drivers are shifting from operating their vehicles to supervising their automation. As a result, it is important to understand how drivers interact with these automated systems and evaluate their effect on driver responses to safety critical events. This study aimed to identify how drivers responded when experiencing a safety critical event in automated vehicles while also engaged in non-driving tasks. In total 48 participants were included in this driving simulator study with two levels of automated driving: (a) driving with no automation and (b) driving with adaptive cruise control (ACC) and lane keeping (LK) systems engaged; and also two levels of a non-driving task (a) watching a movie or (b) no non-driving task. In addition to driving performance measures, non-driving task performance and the mean glance duration for the non-driving task were compared between the two levels of automated driving. Drivers using the automated systems responded worse than those manually driving in terms of reaction time, lane departure duration, and maximum steering wheel angle to an induced lane departure event. These results also found that non-driving tasks further impaired driver responses to a safety critical event in the automated system condition. In the automated driving condition, driver responses to the safety critical events were slower, especially when engaged in a non-driving task. Traditional driver performance variables may not necessarily effectively and accurately evaluate driver responses to events when supervising autonomous vehicle systems. Thus, it is important to develop and use appropriate variables to quantify drivers' performance under these conditions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and National Safety Council. All rights reserved.

  11. 76 FR 52046 - Final Policy Statement on the Eligibility of Pedestrian and Bicycle Improvements Under Federal...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-08-19

    ... important for pedestrian comfort and safety. The most successful and useful public transportation systems... could take light rail, a bus, or ride a bike.'' \\4\\ As the Secretary further described, ``livable...; (G) Eligible Activities; (H) Bicycle Sharing Programs; (I) Planning Issues; (J) Safety Concerns; (K...

  12. Pedestrian Friendly Outdoor Lighting

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Miller, Naomi J. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Koltai, Rita [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); McGowan, Terry [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

    2013-12-31

    This GATEWAY report discusses the problems of pedestrian lighting that occur with all technologies with a focus on the unique optical options and opportunities offered by LEDs through the findings from two pedestrian-focused projects, one at Stanford University in California, and one at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. Incorporating user feedback this report reviews the tradeoffs that must be weighed among visual comfort, color, visibility, efficacy and other factors to stimulate discussion among specifiers, users, energy specialists, and in industry in hopes that new approaches, metrics, and standards can be developed to support pedestrian-focused communities, while reducing energy use.

  13. Making In-Class Skills Training More Effective: The Scope for Interactive Videos to Complement the Delivery of Practical Pedestrian Training

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammond, James; Cherrett, Tom; Waterson, Ben

    2015-01-01

    Skills and awareness of young pedestrians can be improved with on-street practical pedestrian training, often delivered in schools in the UK by local authorities with the intention of improving road safety. This training is often supplemented by in-class paper-based worksheet activities that are seen to be less effective than practical training in…

  14. Testing the effects of safety climate and disruptive children behavior on school bus drivers performance: A multilevel model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zohar, Dov; Lee, Jin

    2016-10-01

    The study was designed to test a multilevel path model whose variables exert opposing effects on school bus drivers' performance. Whereas departmental safety climate was expected to improve driving safety, the opposite was true for in-vehicle disruptive children behavior. The driving safety path in this model consists of increasing risk-taking practices starting with safety shortcuts leading to rule violations and to near-miss events. The study used a sample of 474 school bus drivers in rural areas, driving children to school and school-related activities. Newly developed scales for measuring predictor, mediator and outcome variables were validated with video data taken from inner and outer cameras, which were installed in 29 buses. Results partially supported the model by indicating that group-level safety climate and individual-level children distraction exerted opposite effects on the driving safety path. Furthermore, as hypothesized, children disruption moderated the strength of the safety rule violation-near miss relationship, resulting in greater strength under high disruptiveness. At the same time, the hypothesized interaction between the two predictor variables was not supported. Theoretical and practical implications for studying safety climate in general and distracted driving in particular for professional drivers are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Fusion of Data from Heterogeneous Sensors with Distributed Fields of View and Situation Evaluation for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

    OpenAIRE

    Otto, Carola

    2013-01-01

    In order to develop a driver assistance system for pedestrian protection, pedestrians in the environment of a truck are detected by radars and a camera and are tracked across distributed fields of view using a Joint Integrated Probabilistic Data Association filter. A robust approach for prediction of the system vehicles trajectory is presented. It serves the computation of a probabilistic collision risk based on reachable sets where different sources of uncertainty are taken into account.

  16. A Vehicle Active Safety Model: Vehicle Speed Control Based on Driver Vigilance Detection Using Wearable EEG and Sparse Representation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Zutao; Luo, Dianyuan; Rasim, Yagubov; Li, Yanjun; Meng, Guanjun; Xu, Jian; Wang, Chunbai

    2016-02-19

    In this paper, we present a vehicle active safety model for vehicle speed control based on driver vigilance detection using low-cost, comfortable, wearable electroencephalographic (EEG) sensors and sparse representation. The proposed system consists of three main steps, namely wireless wearable EEG collection, driver vigilance detection, and vehicle speed control strategy. First of all, a homemade low-cost comfortable wearable brain-computer interface (BCI) system with eight channels is designed for collecting the driver's EEG signal. Second, wavelet de-noising and down-sample algorithms are utilized to enhance the quality of EEG data, and Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) is adopted to extract the EEG power spectrum density (PSD). In this step, sparse representation classification combined with k-singular value decomposition (KSVD) is firstly introduced in PSD to estimate the driver's vigilance level. Finally, a novel safety strategy of vehicle speed control, which controls the electronic throttle opening and automatic braking after driver fatigue detection using the above method, is presented to avoid serious collisions and traffic accidents. The simulation and practical testing results demonstrate the feasibility of the vehicle active safety model.

  17. Modeling the safety impacts of driving hours and rest breaks on truck drivers considering time-dependent covariates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Chen; Xie, Yuanchang

    2014-12-01

    Driving hours and rest breaks are closely related to driver fatigue, which is a major contributor to truck crashes. This study investigates the effects of driving hours and rest breaks on commercial truck driver safety. A discrete-time logistic regression model is used to evaluate the crash odds ratios of driving hours and rest breaks. Driving time is divided into 11 one hour intervals. These intervals and rest breaks are modeled as dummy variables. In addition, a Cox proportional hazards regression model with time-dependent covariates is used to assess the transient effects of rest breaks, which consists of a fixed effect and a variable effect. Data collected from two national truckload carriers in 2009 and 2010 are used. The discrete-time logistic regression result indicates that only the crash odds ratio of the 11th driving hour is statistically significant. Taking one, two, and three rest breaks can reduce drivers' crash odds by 68%, 83%, and 85%, respectively, compared to drivers who did not take any rest breaks. The Cox regression result shows clear transient effects for rest breaks. It also suggests that drivers may need some time to adjust themselves to normal driving tasks after a rest break. Overall, the third rest break's safety benefit is very limited based on the results of both models. The findings of this research can help policy makers better understand the impact of driving time and rest breaks and develop more effective rules to improve commercial truck safety. Copyright © 2014 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. New functional pavements for pedestrians and cyclists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallqvist, V; Kjell, G; Cupina, E; Kraft, L; Deck, C; Willinger, R

    2017-08-01

    When many fields of pedestrian and cyclist safety have been extensively studied, the surfacing has long been left unquestioned, despite being developed for another mode of transport and being one of the main causes for falls and fall injuries. In this project new surfacing materials for pedestrian and cyclist safety have been produced. Focusing on augmenting previously largely disregarded parameters as impact absorption, comfort and visibility at the same time as avoiding deteriorating of crucial parameters as friction and wear resistance. Rubber content, binder type, and pigment addition have been varied and evaluated. The results demonstrate that by increasing rubber content of the mixtures the head injury criterion (HIC) value and injury risk can be decreased while maintaining frictional properties according to existing criteria. Assembly of test-lanes demonstrate that some developed materials experience lower flow and component separation than standard materials due to rubber addition, calling for further optimisation of construction procedure linked to content development. Initial trials on the test-lanes indicate that a polyurethane (PU) based material has high cycling comfort, visibility and can be modified with phosphorescence properties. For standard asphalt, impact absorption might be inflicted by modification of bitumen alone but is mostly augmented by rubber addition. The results also indicate that rubber content can decrease ice formation on the materials. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Detecting New Pedestrian Facilities from VGI Data Sources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhong, S.; Xie, Z.

    2017-12-01

    Pedestrian facility (e.g. footbridge, pedestrian crossing and underground passage) information is an important basic data of location based service (LBS) for pedestrians. However, timely updating pedestrian facility information challenges due to facilities change frequently. Previous pedestrian facility information collecting and updating tasks are mainly completed by highly trained specialized persons. However, this conventional approach has several disadvantages such as high cost, long update cycle and so on. Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has proven efficiency to provide new, free and fast growing spatial data. Pedestrian trajectory, which can be seen as measurements of real pedestrian road, is one of the most valuable information of VGI data. Although the accuracy of the trajectories is not too high, due to the large number of measurements, an improvement of quality of the road information can be achieved. Thus, we develop a method for detecting new pedestrian facilities based on the current road network and pedestrian trajectories. Specifically, 1) by analyzing speed, distance and direction, those outliers of pedestrian trajectories are removed, 2) a road network matching algorithm is developed for eliminating redundant trajectories, and 3) a space-time cluster algorithm is adopted for detecting new walking facilities. The performance of the method is evaluated with a series of experiments conducted on a part of the road network of Heifei and a large number of real pedestrian trajectories, and verified the results by using Tencent Street map. The results show that the proposed method is able to detecting new pedestrian facilities from VGI data accurately. We believe that the proposed method provides an alternative way for general road data acquisition, and can improve the quality of LBS for pedestrians.

  20. Evaluation of biofidelity of THUMS pedestrian model under a whole-body impact conditions with a generic sedan buck.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Taotao; Kim, Taewung; Bollapragada, Varun; Poulard, David; Chen, Huipeng; Panzer, Matthew B; Forman, Jason L; Crandall, Jeff R; Pipkorn, Bengt

    2017-05-29

    The goal of this study was to evaluate the biofidelity of the Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS; Ver. 4.01) pedestrian finite element models (PFEM) in a whole-body pedestrian impact condition using a well-characterized generic pedestrian buck model. The biofidelity of THUMS PFEM was evaluated with respect to data from 3 full-scale postmortem human subject (PMHS) pedestrian impact tests, in which a pedestrian buck laterally struck the subjects using a pedestrian buck at 40 km/h. The pedestrian model was scaled to match the anthropometry of the target subjects and then positioned to match the pre-impact postures of the target subjects based on the 3-dimensional motion tracking data obtained during the experiments. An objective rating method was employed to quantitatively evaluate the correlation between the responses of the models and the PMHS. Injuries in the models were predicted both probabilistically and deterministically using empirical injury risk functions and strain measures, respectively, and compared with those of the target PMHS. In general, the model exhibited biofidelic kinematic responses (in the Y-Z plane) regarding trajectories (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] ratings: Y = 0.90 ± 0.11, Z = 0.89 ± 0.09), linear resultant velocities (ISO ratings: 0.83 ± 0.07), accelerations (ISO ratings: Y = 0.58 ± 0.11, Z = 0.52 ± 0.12), and angular velocities (ISO ratings: X = 0.48 ± 0.13) but exhibited stiffer leg responses and delayed head responses compared to those of the PMHS. This indicates potential biofidelity issues with the PFEM for regions below the knee and in the neck. The model also demonstrated comparable reaction forces at the buck front-end regions to those from the PMHS tests. The PFEM generally predicted the injuries that the PMHS sustained but overestimated injuries in the ankle and leg regions. Based on the data considered, the THUMS PFEM was considered to be biofidelic for this pedestrian impact condition and vehicle

  1. Biomechanically Excited SMD Model of a Walking Pedestrian

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhang, Mengshi; Georgakis, Christos T.; Chen, Jun

    2016-01-01

    Through their biomechanical properties, pedestrians interact with the structures they occupy. Although this interaction has been recognized by researchers, pedestrians' biomechanical properties have not been fully addressed. In this paper, a spring-mass-damper (SMD) system, with a pair of biomech......Through their biomechanical properties, pedestrians interact with the structures they occupy. Although this interaction has been recognized by researchers, pedestrians' biomechanical properties have not been fully addressed. In this paper, a spring-mass-damper (SMD) system, with a pair...... produced the pedestrian's center of mass (COM) trajectories from the captured motion markers. The vertical COM trajectory was approximated to be the pedestrian SMD dynamic responses under the excitation of biomechanical forces. SMD model parameters of a pedestrian for a specific walking frequency were...... estimated from a known walking frequency and the pedestrian's weight, assuming that pedestrians always walk in displacement resonance and retain a constant damping ratio of 0.3. Thus, biomechanical forces were extracted using the measured SMD dynamic responses and the estimated SMD parameters. Extracted...

  2. Dual effects of pedestrian density on emergency evacuation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ma, Yi, E-mail: yima23-c@my.cityu.edu.hk [School of Transportation and Logistics, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu (China); Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon (Hong Kong); Lee, Eric Wai Ming; Yuen, Richard Kwok Kit [Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon (Hong Kong)

    2017-02-05

    This paper investigates the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamic with simulation method. In the simulations, both the visibility in building and the exit limit of building are taken into account. The simulation results show that the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamics is dual. On the one hand, when the visibility in building is very large, the increased pedestrian density plays a negative effect. On the other hand, when the visibility in building is very small, the increased pedestrian density can play a positive effect. The simulation results also show that when both the exit width and visibility are very small, the varying of evacuation time with regard to the pedestrian density is non-monotonous and presents a U-shaped tendency. That is, in this case, too large or too small pedestrian density in building is disadvantageous to the evacuation process. Our findings provide a new insight about the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamic. - Highlights: • Pedestrian density inside buildings has dual effects on evacuation. • Increased pedestrian density has a negative effect in cases of increased visibility. • Increased pedestrian density has a positive effect in cases of decreased visibility.

  3. Dual effects of pedestrian density on emergency evacuation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ma, Yi; Lee, Eric Wai Ming; Yuen, Richard Kwok Kit

    2017-01-01

    This paper investigates the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamic with simulation method. In the simulations, both the visibility in building and the exit limit of building are taken into account. The simulation results show that the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamics is dual. On the one hand, when the visibility in building is very large, the increased pedestrian density plays a negative effect. On the other hand, when the visibility in building is very small, the increased pedestrian density can play a positive effect. The simulation results also show that when both the exit width and visibility are very small, the varying of evacuation time with regard to the pedestrian density is non-monotonous and presents a U-shaped tendency. That is, in this case, too large or too small pedestrian density in building is disadvantageous to the evacuation process. Our findings provide a new insight about the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamic. - Highlights: • Pedestrian density inside buildings has dual effects on evacuation. • Increased pedestrian density has a negative effect in cases of increased visibility. • Increased pedestrian density has a positive effect in cases of decreased visibility.

  4. Effect of drivers' age and push button locations on visual time off road, steering wheel deviation and safety perception.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dukic, T; Hanson, L; Falkmer, T

    2006-01-15

    The study examined the effects of manual control locations on two groups of randomly selected young and old drivers in relation to visual time off road, steering wheel deviation and safety perception. Measures of visual time off road, steering wheel deviations and safety perception were performed with young and old drivers during real traffic. The results showed an effect of both driver's age and button location on the dependent variables. Older drivers spent longer visual time off road when pushing the buttons and had larger steering wheel deviations. Moreover, the greater the eccentricity between the normal line of sight and the button locations, the longer the visual time off road and the larger the steering wheel deviations. No interaction effect between button location and age was found with regard to visual time off road. Button location had an effect on perceived safety: the further away from the normal line of sight the lower the rating.

  5. Aging road user studies of intersection safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-10-01

    Task 1.1 assessed younger (21-35 years), middle-aged (50-64 years), and older (65+) drivers ability to : quickly perceive the presence of marked/unmarked crosswalks and pedestrians within them in computer-based : laboratory tasks that recorded res...

  6. Examining Pedestrian Injury Severity Using Alternative Disaggregate Models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Abay, Kibrom Araya

    2013-01-01

    This paper investigates the injury severity of pedestrians considering detailed road user characteristics and alternative model specification using a high-quality Danish road accident data. Such detailed and alternative modeling approach helps to assess the sensitivity of empirical inferences...... to the choice of these models. The empirical analysis reveals that detailed road user characteristics such as crime history of drivers and momentary activities of road users at the time of the accident provides an interesting insight in the injury severity analysis. Likewise, the alternative analytical...... specification of the models reveals that some of the conventionally employed fixed parameters injury severity models could underestimate the effect of some important behavioral attributes of the accidents. For instance, the standard ordered logit model underestimated the marginal effects of some...

  7. Towards an integrated approach of pedestrian behaviour and exposure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papadimitriou, Eleonora

    2016-07-01

    In this paper, an integrated methodology for the analysis of pedestrian behaviour and exposure is proposed, allowing to identify and quantify the effect of pedestrian behaviour, road and traffic characteristics on pedestrian risk exposure, for each pedestrian and for populations of pedestrians. The paper builds on existing research on pedestrian exposure, namely the Routledge microscopic indicator, proposes adjustments to take into account road, traffic and human factors and extends the use of this indicator on area-wide level. Moreover, this paper uses integrated choice and latent variables (ICLV) models of pedestrian behaviour, taking into account road, traffic and human factors. Finally, a methodology is proposed for the integrated estimation of pedestrian behaviour and exposure on the basis of road, traffic and human factors. The method is tested with data from a field survey in Athens, Greece, which used pedestrian behaviour observations as well as a questionnaire on human factors of pedestrian behaviour. The data were used (i) to develop ICLV models of pedestrian behaviour and (ii) to estimate the behaviour and exposure of pedestrians for different road, traffic and behavioural scenarios. The results suggest that both pedestrian behaviour and exposure are largely defined by a small number of factors: road type, traffic volume and pedestrian risk-taking. The probability for risk-taking behaviour and the related exposure decrease in less demanding road and traffic environments. A synthesis of the results allows to enhance the understanding of the interactions between behaviour and exposure of pedestrians and to identify conditions of increased risk exposure. These conditions include principal urban arterials (where risk-taking behaviour is low but the related exposure is very high) and minor arterials (where risk-taking behaviour is more frequent, and the related exposure is still high). A "paradox" of increased risk-taking behaviour of pedestrians with low

  8. Relationship between pedestrian headform tests and injury and fatality rates in vehicle-to-pedestrian crashes in the United States.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueller, Becky; Farmer, Charles; Jermakian, Jessica; Zuby, David

    2013-11-01

    Pedestrian protection evaluations have been developed to encourage vehicle front-end designs that mitigate the consequences of vehicle-to-pedestrian crashes. The European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) evaluates pedestrian head protection with impacts against vehicle hood, windshield, and A-pillars. The Global Technical Regulation No. 9 (GTR 9), being evaluated for U.S. regulation, limits head protection evaluations to impacts against vehicle hoods. The objective of this study was to compare results from pedestrian head impact testing to the real-world rates of fatal and incapacitating injuries in U.S. pedestrian crashes. Data from police reported pedestrian crashes in 14 states were used to calculate real-world fatal and in- capacitating injury rates for seven 2002-07 small cars. Rates were 2.17-4.04 per 100 pedestrians struck for fatal injuries and 10.45-15.35 for incapacitating injuries. Euro NCAP style pedestrian headform tests were conducted against windshield, A-pillar, and hoods of the study vehicles. When compared with pedestrian injury rates, the vehicles' Euro NCAP scores, ranging 5-10 points, showed strong negative correlations (-0.6) to injury rates, though none were statistically significant. Data from the headform impacts for each of the study vehicles were used to calculate that vehicle's predicted serious injury risk. The predicted risks from both the Euro NCAP and GTR 9 test zones showed high positive correlations with the pedestrian fatal and incapacitating injury rates, though few were statistically significant. Whether vehicle stiffness is evaluated on all components of vehicle front ends (Euro NCAP) or is limited to hoods (GTR 9), softer vehicle components correspond to a lower risk of fatality.

  9. Managing Pedestrian and Car Interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-05-26

    In urban areas and especially in inner cities, pedestrians crossing the road considerably influence the road traffic flow. For political (environmental) reasons, priority could be given to pedestrians. A larger number of crossings reduces the pedestr...

  10. Pedestrian Friendly Traffic Signal Control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-01

    This project continues research aimed at real-time detection and use of pedestrian : traffic flow information to enhance adaptive traffic signal control in urban areas : where pedestrian traffic is substantial and must be given appropriate attention ...

  11. Impact of Train Schedule on Pedestrian Movement on Stairway at Suburban Rail Transit Station in Mumbai, India

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shah Jiten

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrian flow takes place in confined environment on stairways under the influence of composition, direction of movement, and schedule of trains. During peak-period, alighting and boarding rate is quite high resulting in very high pedestrian movement from one platform to the other to catch the next train at interchange stations. The transfer of passengers from railway platforms through common undivided stairways becomes difficult, uncomfortable, and unsafe at times when pedestrian flow reaches the capacity level. Understanding of criteria defining quality of flow that affect the effectiveness of facilities like stairways in handling the pedestrian traffic is vital for planning and designing of such facilities to ensure the desired level of service as well as safety in case of emergency. The present paper is based on the study of pedestrian movement on stairways at busy suburban rail transit interchange station at Dadar in Mumbai, India. Pedestrian movements are captured through videography at two stairways and the effect of bidirectional movement on average walking speed is analyzed. The ascending flow in small proportion is found to be more influential in causing speed reduction on undivided stairways. The outcome of the study is useful for capacity and level of service analysis while planning and designing the transit station stairways.

  12. Impact of improving vehicle front design on the burden of pedestrian injuries in Germany, the United States, and India.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moran, Dane; Bose, Dipan; Bhalla, Kavi

    2017-11-17

    European car design regulations and New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) ratings have led to reductions in pedestrian injuries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of improving vehicle front design on mortality and morbidity due to pedestrian injuries in a European country (Germany) and 2 countries (the United States and India) that do not have pedestrian-focused NCAP testing or design regulations. We used data from the International Road Traffic and Accident Database and the Global Burden of Disease project to estimate baseline pedestrian deaths and nonfatal injuries in each country in 2013. The effect of improved passenger car star ratings on probability of pedestrian injury was based on recent evaluations of pedestrian crash data from Germany. The effect of improved heavy motor vehicle (HMV) front end design on pedestrian injuries was based on estimates reported by simulation studies. We used burden of disease methods to estimate population health loss by combining the burden of morbidity and mortality in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost. Extrapolating from evaluations in Germany suggests that improving front end design of cars can potentially reduce the burden of pedestrian injuries due to cars by up to 24% in the United States and 41% in India. In Germany, where cars comply with the United Nations regulation on pedestrian safety, additional improvements would have led to a 1% reduction. Similarly, improved HMV design would reduce DALYs lost by pedestrian victims hit by HMVs by 20% in each country. Overall, improved vehicle design would reduce DALYs lost to road traffic injuries (RTIs) by 0.8% in Germany, 4.1% in the United States, and 6.7% in India. Recent evaluations show a strong correlation between Euro NCAP pedestrian scores and real-life pedestrian injuries, suggesting that improved car front end design in Europe has led to substantial reductions in pedestrian injuries. Although the United States has fewer pedestrian crashes, it would

  13. ADVANCED DRIVER SAFETY SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR THE URBAN TYPE VEHICLE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katarzyna JEZIERSKA-KRUPA

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Smart Power Team is currently working on the design of an urban electric vehicle designed to compete in the Shell Eco-marathon. One important aspect of this type of vehicle characteristics is it safety. The project of advanced driver assistance systems has included some proposals of such systems and the concept of their execution. The first concept, BLIS (Blind Spot Information System, is to build a system of informing a driver about vehicles appearing in the blind spot. The system constitutes a second concept, CDIS (Collision Detection and Information System, and it is designed to detect a vehicle collision and inform the team. Further systems are: DPMS (Dew Point Measurement System - a system which does not allow a situation, where the windows are fogged, OHRS (Overtaking Horn Reminder System - a system which checks overtaking and MSS (main supervision system - a supervisory system. These concepts are based on the assumption of the use of laser sensors, photoelectric, humidity and temperature, and other commercially available systems. The article presents a detailed description of driver assistance systems and virtual prototyping methodology for these systems, as well as the numerical results of the verification of one of the systems.

  14. Predicting the walking speed of pedestrians on stairs

    OpenAIRE

    Fujiyama, T.; Tyler, N.

    2010-01-01

    In this paper, we propose a framework in which the behaviour of a pedestrian is predicted based on the characteristics of both the pedestrian and the facility the pedestrian uses. As an example of its application, we develop a model to predict the walking speed of a pedestrian on stairs. We examine the physiology and biomechanics of walking on stairs, and then develop a model that predicts walking speed based on the weight and leg extensor power of the pedestrian, and the gradient of the stai...

  15. Walking and child pedestrian injury: a systematic review of built environment correlates of safe walking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rothman, Linda; Buliung, Ron; Macarthur, Colin; To, Teresa; Howard, Andrew

    2014-02-01

    The child active transportation literature has focused on walking, with little attention to risk associated with increased traffic exposure. This paper reviews the literature related to built environment correlates of walking and pedestrian injury in children together, to broaden the current conceptualization of walkability to include injury prevention. Two independent searches were conducted focused on walking in children and child pedestrian injury within nine electronic databases until March, 2012. Studies were included which: 1) were quantitative 2) set in motorized countries 3) were either urban or suburban 4) investigated specific built environment risk factors 5) had outcomes of either walking in children and/or child pedestrian roadway collisions (ages 0-12). Built environment features were categorized according to those related to density, land use diversity or roadway design. Results were cross-tabulated to identify how built environment features associate with walking and injury. Fifty walking and 35 child pedestrian injury studies were identified. Only traffic calming and presence of playgrounds/recreation areas were consistently associated with more walking and less pedestrian injury. Several built environment features were associated with more walking, but with increased injury. Many features had inconsistent results or had not been investigated for either outcome. The findings emphasise the importance of incorporating safety into the conversation about creating more walkable cities.

  16. A statistical analysis of the impact of advertising signs on road safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yannis, George; Papadimitriou, Eleonora; Papantoniou, Panagiotis; Voulgari, Chrisoula

    2013-01-01

    This research aims to investigate the impact of advertising signs on road safety. An exhaustive review of international literature was carried out on the effect of advertising signs on driver behaviour and safety. Moreover, a before-and-after statistical analysis with control groups was applied on several road sites with different characteristics in the Athens metropolitan area, in Greece, in order to investigate the correlation between the placement or removal of advertising signs and the related occurrence of road accidents. Road accident data for the 'before' and 'after' periods on the test sites and the control sites were extracted from the database of the Hellenic Statistical Authority, and the selected 'before' and 'after' periods vary from 2.5 to 6 years. The statistical analysis shows no statistical correlation between road accidents and advertising signs in none of the nine sites examined, as the confidence intervals of the estimated safety effects are non-significant at 95% confidence level. This can be explained by the fact that, in the examined road sites, drivers are overloaded with information (traffic signs, directions signs, labels of shops, pedestrians and other vehicles, etc.) so that the additional information load from advertising signs may not further distract them.

  17. Evaluation of users' satisfaction on pedestrian facilities using pair-wise comparison approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zainol, R.; Ahmad, F.; Nordin, N. A.; Aripin, A. W. M.

    2014-02-01

    Global climate change issues demand people of the world to change the way they live today. Thus, current cities need to be redeveloped towards less use of carbon in their day to day operations. Pedestrianized environment is one of the approaches used in reducing carbon foot print in cities. Heritage cities are the first to be looked into since they were built in the era in which motorized vehicles were minimal. Therefore, the research explores users' satisfaction on assessment of physical attributes of pedestrianization in Melaka Historical City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It aims to examine users' satisfaction on pedestrian facilities provided within the study area using pair wise questionnaire comparison approach. A survey of 200 respondents using random sampling was conducted in six different sites namely Jonker Street, Church Street, Kota Street, Goldsmith Street, Merdeka Street to Taming Sari Tower and Merdeka Street to River Cruise terminal. The survey consists of an assessment tool based on a nine-point scale of users' satisfaction level of pathway properties, zebra pedestrian crossing, street furniture, personal safety, adjacent to traffic flow, aesthetic and amenities. Analytical hierarchical process (AHP) was used to avoid any biasness in analyzing the data collected. Findings show that Merdeka Street to Taming Sari Tower as the street that scores the highest satisfaction level that fulfils all the required needs of a pedestrianized environment. Similar assessment elements can be used to evaluate existing streets in other cities and these criteria should also be used in planning for future cities.

  18. Pedestrian Traffic Conditions of Rural Roads and Built-Up Areas: The Analysis of the Existing Situation and Possibilities of Improving Traffic Conditions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nemunas Abukauskas

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available The results of lengthy thorough investigations into traffic safety situation show that the percentage of pedestrians getting involved in road traffic accidents on Lithuanian roads is significantly higher (more than 33 % of the total number of injury and fatal accidents than that compared to the other European Union member-states. The article studies traffic safety problems and their factors causing the largest influence on the occurrence of these accidents. Considering valuable experience gained by foreign countries, investigation was carried out to establish general and main factors causing insufficient road safety conditions and significance of these factors to road safety. The article also shows the main activity improving road safety in Lithuania and discusses the effectiveness of strategic and local (temporary and long term measures to improve conditions for pedestrian road safety. Article in Lithuanian

  19. Schoolbus driver performance can be improved with driver training ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    and compares the school transport driver performance with that of general motorists. Despite concerns that ... To compare Safe Travel to School Programme driver safety perfor- .... The SA government has recognised the challenges faced with.

  20. Driver and Traffic Safety Education: A Lesson Plan for the Residents of Gracewood State School and Hospital.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Latimer, Jonathan L.

    Outlined is a course of driver education and traffic safety taught to retarded residents of a state institution. Stressed is the importance of driver education for residents able to leave the institution. The philosophy of the program is given to emphasize individualizing instruction, instructing students who possess the potential for driving,…

  1. Jamming transitions induced by an attraction in pedestrian flow

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwak, Jaeyoung; Jo, Hang-Hyun; Luttinen, Tapio; Kosonen, Iisakki

    2017-08-01

    We numerically study jamming transitions in pedestrian flow interacting with an attraction, mostly based on the social force model for pedestrians who can join the attraction. We formulate the joining probability as a function of social influence from others, reflecting that individual choice behavior is likely influenced by others. By controlling pedestrian influx and the social influence parameter, we identify various pedestrian flow patterns. For the bidirectional flow scenario, we observe a transition from the free flow phase to the freezing phase, in which oppositely walking pedestrians reach a complete stop and block each other. On the other hand, a different transition behavior appears in the unidirectional flow scenario, i.e., from the free flow phase to the localized jam phase and then to the extended jam phase. It is also observed that the extended jam phase can end up in freezing phenomena with a certain probability when pedestrian flux is high with strong social influence. This study highlights that attractive interactions between pedestrians and an attraction can trigger jamming transitions by increasing the number of conflicts among pedestrians near the attraction. In order to avoid excessive pedestrian jams, we suggest suppressing the number of conflicts under a certain level by moderating pedestrian influx especially when the social influence is strong.

  2. Jamming transitions induced by an attraction in pedestrian flow.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwak, Jaeyoung; Jo, Hang-Hyun; Luttinen, Tapio; Kosonen, Iisakki

    2017-08-01

    We numerically study jamming transitions in pedestrian flow interacting with an attraction, mostly based on the social force model for pedestrians who can join the attraction. We formulate the joining probability as a function of social influence from others, reflecting that individual choice behavior is likely influenced by others. By controlling pedestrian influx and the social influence parameter, we identify various pedestrian flow patterns. For the bidirectional flow scenario, we observe a transition from the free flow phase to the freezing phase, in which oppositely walking pedestrians reach a complete stop and block each other. On the other hand, a different transition behavior appears in the unidirectional flow scenario, i.e., from the free flow phase to the localized jam phase and then to the extended jam phase. It is also observed that the extended jam phase can end up in freezing phenomena with a certain probability when pedestrian flux is high with strong social influence. This study highlights that attractive interactions between pedestrians and an attraction can trigger jamming transitions by increasing the number of conflicts among pedestrians near the attraction. In order to avoid excessive pedestrian jams, we suggest suppressing the number of conflicts under a certain level by moderating pedestrian influx especially when the social influence is strong.

  3. Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2012

    CERN Document Server

    Kirsch, Uwe; Schreckenberg, Michael

    2014-01-01

    The 6th International Conference on Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics conference (PED2012) showcased research on human locomotion. This book presents the proceedings of PED2012. Humans have walked for eons; our drive to settle the globe began with a walk out of Africa. However, much remains to discover. As the world moves toward sustainability while racing to assess and accommodate climate change, research must provide insight on the physical requirements of walking, the dynamics of pedestrians on the move and more. We must understand, predict and simulate pedestrian behaviour, to avoid dangerous situations, to plan for emergencies, and not least, to make walking more attractive and enjoyable. PED2012 offered 70 presentations and keynotes and 70 poster presentations covering new and improved mathematical models, describing new insights on pedestrian behaviour in normal and emergency cases and presenting research based on sensors and advanced observation methods. These papers offer a starting point for innova...

  4. Crossing Behaviour of Pedestrians Along Urban Streets in Malaysia

    OpenAIRE

    Al Bargi Walid A.; David Daniel Basil; Prasetijo Joewono; Rohani Munzilah Md; Mohamad Nor Siti Naquiyah

    2017-01-01

    Road crossings are considered as an unavoidable part of walking in which the desirable route of pedestrians interacts with vehicles. These interactions may expose the pedestrians to risks or delays. In Malaysia, road accident statistics show that pedestrian casualties are fairly high. Inappropriate gap acceptance when pedestrians cross roads is a main contributing element to this situation. In this context, the purpose of this study was to develop realistic models for pedestrian road crossing...

  5. Reliability prediction for the vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS and passive safety systems (PSS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Balbir S. Dhillon

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The human error has been reported as a major root cause in road accidents in today’s world. The human as a driver in road vehicles composed of human, mechanical and electrical components is constantly exposed to changing surroundings (e.g., road conditions, environmentwhich deteriorate the driver’s capacities leading to a potential accident. The auto industries and transportation authorities have realized that similar to other complex and safety sensitive transportation systems, the road vehicles need to rely on both advanced technologies (i.e., Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS and Passive Safety Systems (PSS (e.g.,, seatbelts, airbags in order to mitigate the risk of accidents and casualties. In this study, the advantages and disadvantages of ADAS as active safety systems as well as passive safety systems in road vehicles have been discussed. Also, this study proposes models that analyze the interactions between human as a driver and ADAS Warning and Crash Avoidance Systems and PSS in the design of vehicles. Thereafter, the mathematical models have been developed to make reliability prediction at any given time on the road transportation for vehicles equipped with ADAS and PSS. Finally, the implications of this study in the improvement of vehicle designs and prevention of casualties are discussed.

  6. In-vehicle stereo vision system for identification of traffic conflicts between bus and pedestrian

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salvatore Cafiso

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available The traffic conflict technique (TCT was developed as “surrogate measure of road safety” to identify near-crash events by using measures of the spatial and temporal proximity of road users. Traditionally applications of TCT focus on a specific site by the way of manually or automated supervision. Nowadays the development of in-vehicle (IV technologies provides new opportunities for monitoring driver behavior and interaction with other road users directly into the traffic stream. In the paper a stereo vision and GPS system for traffic conflict investigation is presented for detecting conflicts between vehicle and pedestrian. The system is able to acquire geo-referenced sequences of stereo frames that are used to provide real time information related to conflict occurrence and severity. As case study, an urban bus was equipped with a prototype of the system and a trial in the city of Catania (Italy was carried out analyzing conflicts with pedestrian crossing in front of the bus. Experimental results pointed out the potentialities of the system for collection of data that can be used to get suitable traffic conflict measures. Specifically, a risk index of the conflict between pedestrians and vehicles is proposed to classify collision probability and severity using data collected by the system. This information may be used to develop in-vehicle warning systems and urban network risk assessment.

  7. Pedestrian hybrid beacon guide : recommendations and case study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    A pedestrian hybrid beacon (PHB) is a traffic control : device similar to a European pedestrian signal : (PELICAN) that was imported to the US and adapted by : engineers in Arizona to increase motorists awareness of : pedestrian crossings at uncon...

  8. Mapping patterns of pedestrian fatal accidents in Israel

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Prato, Carlo Giacomo; Gitelman, Victoria; Bekhor, Shlomo

    2010-01-01

    This study intends to provide insight into pedestrian accidents by uncovering their patterns in order to design preventive measures and to allocate resources for identifiable problems. Kohonen neural networks are applied to a database of pedestrian fatal accidents occurred during the four-year pe......, results suggest the necessity of designing education campaigns for parents, promoting information campaigns for road users and allocating resources for infrastructural interventions and law enforcement in order to address the identified major problems.......-year period between 2003 and 2006. Results show the existence of five pedestrian accident patterns: (i) elderly pedestrians crossing on crosswalks far from intersection in metropolitan areas; (ii) pedestrians crossing suddenly or from hidden places and colliding with two-wheel vehicles on urban road sections......; (iii) male pedestrians crossing at night and being hit by four-wheel vehicles on rural road sections; (iv) young male pedestrians crossing at night wide road sections in both urban and rural areas; (v) children and teenagers crossing road sections in small rural communities. From the policy perspective...

  9. Dual effects of pedestrian density on emergency evacuation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Yi; Lee, Eric Wai Ming; Yuen, Richard Kwok Kit

    2017-02-01

    This paper investigates the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamic with simulation method. In the simulations, both the visibility in building and the exit limit of building are taken into account. The simulation results show that the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamics is dual. On the one hand, when the visibility in building is very large, the increased pedestrian density plays a negative effect. On the other hand, when the visibility in building is very small, the increased pedestrian density can play a positive effect. The simulation results also show that when both the exit width and visibility are very small, the varying of evacuation time with regard to the pedestrian density is non-monotonous and presents a U-shaped tendency. That is, in this case, too large or too small pedestrian density in building is disadvantageous to the evacuation process. Our findings provide a new insight about the effect of the pedestrian density in building on the evacuation dynamic.

  10. Simulation of Cognitive Pedestrian Agents Crowds in Crisis Situations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Margaret Lyell

    2006-06-01

    Full Text Available In crisis situations in an urban environment, first responder teams often must deal with crowds of people. Consider the case of a building fire in a dense city environment. People may be injured; walkways may be blocked, with fire equipment attempting to reach the scene. Crowd behavior can become an issue when trying to reach the injured, ensure safety and restore conditions to normal. The motivations of pedestrians that form the crowd can vary. Some are there because they are curious about the crisis situation. Others, attending to their individual concerns, may have found themselves in the 'wrong' location. They may be trying to leave the area, but the density of people as well as the spatial layout of the walkways may be impeding their progress. Other individuals, unaware of the fire, may be attempting to reach their intended destinations that happen to be near the crisis area, thus adding to crowd congestion. With a model of crowd behavior, effective strategies for resource usage in managing crowd behavior can be developed. Our approach to this problem is that of agent-based modeling and simulation. We develop a cognitive pedestrian agent model. Utilizing this model, we simulate crowd behavior in a 'city fire' scenario. Characteristics of crowd behavior with different pedestrian personality mixes and a strategy for crowd management are investigated

  11. Autonomous emergency braking systems adapted to snowy road conditions improve drivers' perceived safety and trust.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koglbauer, Ioana; Holzinger, Jürgen; Eichberger, Arno; Lex, Cornelia

    2018-04-03

    This study investigated drivers' evaluation of a conventional autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system on high and reduced tire-road friction and compared these results to those of an AEB system adaptive to the reduced tire-road friction by earlier braking. Current automated systems such as the AEB do not adapt the vehicle control strategy to the road friction; for example, on snowy roads. Because winter precipitation is associated with a 19% increase in traffic crashes and a 13% increase in injuries compared to dry conditions, the potential of conventional AEB to prevent collisions could be significantly improved by including friction in the control algorithm. Whereas adaption is not legally required for a conventional AEB system, higher automated functions will have to adapt to the current tire-road friction because human drivers will not be required to monitor the driving environment at all times. For automated driving functions to be used, high levels of perceived safety and trust of occupants have to be reached with new systems. The application case of an AEB is used to investigate drivers' evaluation depending on the road condition in order to gain knowledge for the design of future driving functions. In a driving simulator, the conventional, nonadaptive AEB was evaluated on dry roads with high friction (μ = 1) and on snowy roads with reduced friction (μ = 0.3). In addition, an AEB system adapted to road friction was designed for this study and compared with the conventional AEB on snowy roads with reduced friction. Ninety-six drivers (48 males, 48 females) assigned to 5 age groups (20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60-75 years) drove with AEB in the simulator. The drivers observed and evaluated the AEB's braking actions in response to an imminent rear-end collision at an intersection. The results show that drivers' safety and trust in the conventional AEB were significantly lower on snowy roads, and the nonadaptive autonomous braking strategy was

  12. Choice of teenagers' vehicles and views on vehicle safety: survey of parents of novice teenage drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hellinga, Laurie A; McCartt, Anne T; Haire, Emily R

    2007-01-01

    To examine parental decisions about vehicles driven by teenagers and parental knowledge of vehicle safety. About 300 parents were interviewed during spring 2006 in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Rhode Island while teenagers took their first on-road driving tests. Fewer than half of parents surveyed said teenagers would be the primary drivers of the chosen vehicles. Parents most often cited safety, existing family vehicle, and reliability when explaining the choices for their teenagers' vehicles. About half of the vehicles intended for teenagers were small/mini/sports cars, pickups, or SUVs - vehicles considered less safe for teenagers than midsize/large cars or minivans. A large majority of vehicles were 2001 models or earlier. Vehicles purchased in anticipation of adding a new driver to the family were more likely to be the sizes/types considered less safe than vehicles already owned. Few parents insisted on side airbags or electronic stability control, despite strong evidence of their safety benefits. Even when asked to identify ideal vehicles for their teenagers to drive, about half of parents identified less safe vehicle sizes/types. Most parents knew that midsize/large vehicles are safer than small vehicles, and at least half of parents said SUVs and pickups are not safe for teenage drivers, citing instability. The majority of parents understood some of the important criteria for choosing safe vehicles for their teenagers. However, parents actually selected many vehicles for teenagers that provide inferior crash protection. Vehicle safety varies substantially by vehicle size, type, and safety features. Many teenagers are driving inferior vehicles in terms of crashworthiness and crash avoidance.

  13. Evaluation of users' satisfaction on pedestrian facilities using pair-wise comparison approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zainol, R; Ahmad, F; Nordin, N A; Aripin, A W M

    2014-01-01

    Global climate change issues demand people of the world to change the way they live today. Thus, current cities need to be redeveloped towards less use of carbon in their day to day operations. Pedestrianized environment is one of the approaches used in reducing carbon foot print in cities. Heritage cities are the first to be looked into since they were built in the era in which motorized vehicles were minimal. Therefore, the research explores users' satisfaction on assessment of physical attributes of pedestrianization in Melaka Historical City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It aims to examine users' satisfaction on pedestrian facilities provided within the study area using pair wise questionnaire comparison approach. A survey of 200 respondents using random sampling was conducted in six different sites namely Jonker Street, Church Street, Kota Street, Goldsmith Street, Merdeka Street to Taming Sari Tower and Merdeka Street to River Cruise terminal. The survey consists of an assessment tool based on a nine-point scale of users' satisfaction level of pathway properties, zebra pedestrian crossing, street furniture, personal safety, adjacent to traffic flow, aesthetic and amenities. Analytical hierarchical process (AHP) was used to avoid any biasness in analyzing the data collected. Findings show that Merdeka Street to Taming Sari Tower as the street that scores the highest satisfaction level that fulfils all the required needs of a pedestrianized environment. Similar assessment elements can be used to evaluate existing streets in other cities and these criteria should also be used in planning for future cities

  14. Vehicle emission implications of drivers' smart advisory system for traffic operations in work zones.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Qing; Qiao, Fengxiang; Yu, Lei

    2016-05-01

    Wireless communication systems have been broadly applied in various complicated traffic operations to improve mobility and safety on roads, which may raise a concern about the implication of the new technology on vehicle emissions. This paper explores how the wireless communication systems improve drivers' driving behaviors and its contributions to the emission reduction, in terms of Operating Mode (OpMode) IDs distribution used in emission estimation. A simulated work zone with completed traffic operation was selected as a test bed. Sixty subjects were recruited for the tests, whose demographic distribution was based on the Census data in Houston, Texas. A scene of a pedestrian's crossing in the work zone was designed for the driving test. Meanwhile, a wireless communication system called Drivers Smart Advisory System (DSAS) was proposed and introduced in the driving simulation, which provided drivers with warning messages in the work zone. Two scenarios were designed for a leading vehicle as well as for a following vehicle driving through the work zone, which included a base test without any wireless communication systems, and a driving test with the trigger of the DSAS. Subjects' driving behaviors in the simulation were recorded to evaluate safety and estimate the vehicle emission using the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released emission model MOVES. The correlation between drivers' driving behavior and the distribution of the OpMode ID during each scenario was investigated. Results show that the DSAS was able to induce drivers to accelerate smoothly, keep longer headway distance and stop earlier for a hazardous situation in the work zone, which driving behaviors result in statistically significant reduction in vehicle emissions for almost all studied air pollutants (p-values range from 4.10E-51 to 2.18E-03). The emission reduction was achieved by the switching the distribution of the OpMode IDs from higher emission zones to lower emission zones

  15. An Algorithm for Pedestrian Detection in Multispectral Image Sequences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kniaz, V. V.; Fedorenko, V. V.

    2017-05-01

    The growing interest for self-driving cars provides a demand for scene understanding and obstacle detection algorithms. One of the most challenging problems in this field is the problem of pedestrian detection. Main difficulties arise from a diverse appearances of pedestrians. Poor visibility conditions such as fog and low light conditions also significantly decrease the quality of pedestrian detection. This paper presents a new optical flow based algorithm BipedDetet that provides robust pedestrian detection on a single-borad computer. The algorithm is based on the idea of simplified Kalman filtering suitable for realization on modern single-board computers. To detect a pedestrian a synthetic optical flow of the scene without pedestrians is generated using slanted-plane model. The estimate of a real optical flow is generated using a multispectral image sequence. The difference of the synthetic optical flow and the real optical flow provides the optical flow induced by pedestrians. The final detection of pedestrians is done by the segmentation of the difference of optical flows. To evaluate the BipedDetect algorithm a multispectral dataset was collected using a mobile robot.

  16. The effect of an overpass on pedestrian injuries on a major highway ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    A bigger proportion of females (49.1%) crossed on the overpass compared to males (29.2%). More children (79.7 %) than adults (27.3%) used the overpass. The majority of pedestrians (77.9%) were worried about their safety in traffic but only 6.6% thought of the overpass as an appropriate means to avoid traffic accidents.

  17. Fuzzy Pheromone Potential Fields for Virtual Pedestrian Simulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Meriem Mandar

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The study of collective movement of pedestrians is crucial in various situations, such as evacuation of buildings, stadiums, or external events like concerts or public events. In such situations and under panic conditions, several incidents and disasters may arise, resulting in loss of human lives. Hence, the study and modeling of the pedestrians behavior are imperative in both normal and panic situations. In a previous work, we developed a microscopic model for pedestrian movement based on the algorithm of Ant Colonies and the principles of cellular automata. We took advantage of a fuzzy model to better reflect the uncertainty and vagueness of the perception of space to pedestrians, especially to represent the desirability or blurred visibility of virtual pedestrians. This paper uses the mechanism of artificial potential fields. Said fields provide virtual pedestrians with better visibility of their surroundings and its various components (goals and obstacles. The predictions provided by the first-order traffic flow theory are confirmed by the results of the simulation. The advantage of this model lies in the combination of benefits provided by the model of ants and artificial potential fields in a fuzzy modeling, to better understand the perceptions of pedestrians.

  18. Pedestrian detection based on redundant wavelet transform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huang, Lin; Ji, Liping; Hu, Ping; Yang, Tiejun

    2016-10-01

    Intelligent video surveillance is to analysis video or image sequences captured by a fixed or mobile surveillance camera, including moving object detection, segmentation and recognition. By using it, we can be notified immediately in an abnormal situation. Pedestrian detection plays an important role in an intelligent video surveillance system, and it is also a key technology in the field of intelligent vehicle. So pedestrian detection has very vital significance in traffic management optimization, security early warn and abnormal behavior detection. Generally, pedestrian detection can be summarized as: first to estimate moving areas; then to extract features of region of interest; finally to classify using a classifier. Redundant wavelet transform (RWT) overcomes the deficiency of shift variant of discrete wavelet transform, and it has better performance in motion estimation when compared to discrete wavelet transform. Addressing the problem of the detection of multi-pedestrian with different speed, we present an algorithm of pedestrian detection based on motion estimation using RWT, combining histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) and support vector machine (SVM). Firstly, three intensities of movement (IoM) are estimated using RWT and the corresponding areas are segmented. According to the different IoM, a region proposal (RP) is generated. Then, the features of a RP is extracted using HOG. Finally, the features are fed into a SVM trained by pedestrian databases and the final detection results are gained. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm can detect pedestrians accurately and efficiently.

  19. Pedestrian Crashes

    Data.gov (United States)

    Town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina — This data set maps the locations of crashes involving pedestrians in the Chapel Hill Region of North Carolina.The data comes from police-reported bicycle-motor...

  20. Pedestrian wind environment around tall buildings

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Stathopoulos, T.; Blocken, B.; Tamura, Yukio; Yoshie, Ryuichiro

    2016-01-01

    Pedestrian-level wind conditions around tall buildings are described by examining the aerodynamics of the urban environment and the various wind comfort criteria established in the wind engineering field. Experimental and, possibly, computational assessment of pedestrian-level wind conditions in the

  1. The correlation between pedestrian injury severity in real-life crashes and Euro NCAP pedestrian test results.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strandroth, Johan; Rizzi, Matteo; Sternlund, Simon; Lie, Anders; Tingvall, Claes

    2011-12-01

    The aim of the present study was to estimate the correlation between Euro NCAP pedestrian rating scores and injury outcome in real-life car-to-pedestrian crashes, with special focus on long-term disability. Another aim was to determine whether brake assist (BA) systems affect the injury outcome in real-life car-to-pedestrian crashes and to estimate the combined effects in injury reduction of a high Euro NCAP ranking score and BA. In the current study, the Euro NCAP pedestrian scoring was compared with the real-life outcome in pedestrian crashes that occurred in Sweden during 2003 to 2010. The real-life crash data were obtained from the data acquisition system Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition (STRADA), which combines police records and hospital admission data. The medical data consisted of International Classification of Diseases (ICD) diagnoses and Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) scoring. In all, approximately 500 pedestrians submitted to hospital were included in the study. Each car model was coded according to Euro NCAP pedestrian scores. In addition, the presence or absence of BA was coded for each car involved. Cars were grouped according to their scoring. Injury outcomes were analyzed with AIS and, at the victim level, with permanent medical impairment. This was done by translating the injury scores for each individual to the risk of serious consequences (RSC) at 1, 5, and 10 percent risk of disability level. This indicates the total risk of a medical disability for each victim, given the severity and location of injuries. The mean RSC (mRSC) was then calculated for each car group and t-tests were conducted to falsify the null hypothesis at p ≤ .05 that the mRSC within the groups was equal. The results showed a significant reduction of injury severity for cars with better pedestrian scoring, although cars with a high score could not be studied due to lack of cases. The reduction in RSC for medium-performing cars in comparison with low-performing cars

  2. Analysis of Pedestrian Gap Acceptance and Crossing Decision in Kuala Lumpur

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohamad Nor Siti Naquiyah

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrians are most vulnerable of all road users. This research aims to investigate and model pedestrian road crossing behaviour at crossing facilities. In particular, they have two aspects of pedestrians crossing behaviour are examined, namely the size of traffic gaps acceptance by pedestrians and the decision of pedestrians either to cross the road or not. A fields survey was carried out at six crossing facilities which from a zebra crossing at midblock. In this survey, the data were recorded in real traffic condition using video recorder. Determine the associations between characteristics of pedestrians, crossing facilities and vehicular traffic through on-site observations of pedestrian behaviour. This data will analysis using statistical analysis which is multiple regression and binary logit regression method. It is hope that through this research, the model of pedestrian gap acceptance and pedestrian crossing decision can be reached and what are the indicators that pedestrians look for when accepting gaps to cross the road.

  3. ROAD ACCIDENT AND SAFETY STUDY IN SYLHET REGION OF BANGLADESH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    B. K. BANIK

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Roads, highways and streets are fundamental infrastructure facilities to provide the transportation for passenger travel and goods movement from one place to another in Sylhet, north–eastern division of Bangladesh with rapid growth of road vehicle, being comparatively developed economic tourist prone area faces severe road traffic accident. Such severe road accidents cause harsh safety hazards on the roads of Sylhet area. This research work presents an overview of the road traffic accident and degraded road safety situation in Sylhet zone which in particular, discusses the key road accident problem characteristics identifying the hazardous roads and spots, most responsible vehicles and related components, conditions of drivers and pedestrians, most victims of accident, effects of accident on society, safety priorities and options available in Sylhet. In this regard, a comprehensive questionnaire survey was conducted on the concerned groups of transportation and detailed accident data was collected from a popular local newspaper. Analysis of the study reveals that Dhaka- Sylhet highway is the most hazardous in road basis and Sylhet Sador thana is the most vulnerable in thana basis in Sylhet region.

  4. General oilfield driver improvement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Johnson, G.

    1997-01-01

    The general oilfield driver improvement (GODI) course was discussed. The course is offered to truckers in the oil and gas industry to help reduce accidents and injuries. Oilfield trucking is one of the most accident and injury prone sectors in the Alberta economy. This paper presented Heck's Trucking company's experience in sending its employees on the course. Drivers were taught (1) the National safety code requirements, (2) Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance requirements, (3) occupational health and safety concerns, (4) vehicle dimension and GVW restrictions, (5) hours of service regulations, (6) log book and pre-trip inspection requirements, (7) workplace hazardous material information, and (8) transportation of dangerous goods. Overall, the course was judged to provide excellent training before sending drivers into the field. The employee, the customer, and the company, all stand to benefit from having rigorous and uniform standards for all drivers in the oil and gas industry

  5. Driver's anger state identification by using facial expression in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Preventive safety system of vehicle is highlighted to reduce the number of traffic accidents. Driver's state adaptive driving safety system may be one of candidates of the safety system. Identifying driver's psychosomatic states is indispensable to establish those safety systems. Anger of driver state is often seen in traffic ...

  6. Bus Stops and Pedestrian-Motor Vehicle Collisions in Lima, Peru: A Matched Case-Control Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quistberg, D. Alex; Koepsell, Thomas D.; Johnston, Brian D.; Boyle, Linda Ng; Miranda, J. Jaime; Ebel, Beth E.

    2015-01-01

    Objective To evaluate the relationship between bus stop characteristics and pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions. Design Matched case-control study where the units of study were pedestrian crossing. Setting Random sample of 11 police commissaries in Lima, Peru. Data collection occurred from February, 2011 to September, 2011. Participants 97 intersection cases representing 1,134 collisions and 40 mid-block cases representing 469 collisions that occurred between October, 2010 and January, 2011 and their matched controls. Main Exposures Presence of a bus stop and specific bus stop characteristics. Main Outcome Occurrence of a pedestrian-motor vehicle collision. Results Intersections with bus stops were three times more likely to have a pedestrian-vehicle collision (OR 3.28, 95% CI 1.53-7.03), relative to intersections without bus stops. Both formal and informal bus stops were associated with a higher odds of a collision at intersections (OR 6.23, 95% CI 1.76-22.0 and OR 2.98, 1.37-6.49). At mid-block sites, bus stops on a bus-dedicated transit lane were also associated with collision risk (OR 2.36, 95% CI 1.02-5.42). All bus stops were located prior to the intersection, contrary to practices in most high income countries. Conclusions In urban Lima, the presence of a bus stop was associated with a three-fold increase in risk of a pedestrian collision. The highly competitive environment among bus companies may provide an economic incentive for risky practices such as dropping off passengers in the middle of traffic and jockeying for position with other buses. Bus stop placement should be considered to improve pedestrian safety. PMID:24357516

  7. New insights into turbulent pedestrian movement pattern in crowd-quakes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ma, J; Song, W G; Lo, S M; Fang, Z M

    2013-01-01

    Video recordings right before the Love Parade disaster have been quantitatively analyzed to explore the bursts of unusual crowd movement patterns, crowd-quakes. The pedestrian movement pattern in this incident was special for the reason that it happened in a congested counter flow scenario, where stopped pedestrians were involved. No one was believed to have pushed others intentionally at the beginning, however, under this situation, the body contacts among the pedestrians still induced a force spread, which then led to velocity fluctuation. As indicated by the individual velocity-related features, the densely crowded pedestrian movement displayed turbulent flow features. Further analyzing the overall flow field, we also found that the pedestrian flow field shared typical patterns with turbulent fluid flow. As a result of the turbulent state, different clusters of pedestrians displayed different velocity features. Thus crowd pressure which took into account the velocity and density information was proved to be a good indicator of crowd disasters. Based on these essential features of pedestrian crowd-quakes, a minimal model, i.e., a pedestrian crowd-quake model, was established. Effects including pedestrian gait, stress conservation level and personal intention to escape were explored. (paper)

  8. Real life safety benefits of increasing brake deceleration in car-to-pedestrian accidents: Simulation of Vacuum Emergency Braking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jeppsson, Hanna; Östling, Martin; Lubbe, Nils

    2018-02-01

    The objective of this study is to predict the real-life benefits, namely the number of injuries avoided rather than the reduction in impact speed, offered by a Vacuum Emergency Brake (VEB) added to a pedestrian automated emergency braking (AEB) system. We achieve this through the virtual simulation of simplified mathematical models of a system which incorporates expected future advances in technology, such as a wide sensor field of view, and reductions in the time needed for detection, classification, and brake pressure build up. The German In-Depth Accident Study database and the related Pre Crash Matrix, both released in the beginning of 2016, were used for this study and resulted in a final sample of 526 collisions between passenger car fronts and pedestrians. Weight factors were calculated for both simulation model and injury risk curves to make the data representative of Germany as a whole. The accident data was used with a hypothetical AEB system in a simulation model, and injury risk was calculated from the new impact speed using injury risk curves to generate new situations using real accidents. Adding a VEB to a car with pedestrian AEB decreased pedestrian casualties by an additional 8-22%, depending on system setting and injury level, over the AEB-only system. The overall decrease in fatalities was 80-87%, an improvement of 8%. Collision avoidance was improved by 14-28%. VEB with a maximum deceleration in the middle of the modelled performance range has an effectiveness similar to that of an "early activation" system, where the AEB is triggered as early as 2 s before collision. VEB may therefore offer a substantial increase in performance without increasing false positive rates, which earlier AEB activation does. Most collisions and injuries can be avoided when AEB is supplemented by the high performance VEB; remaining cases are characterised by high pedestrian walking speed and late visibility due to view obstructions. VEB is effective in all analysed

  9. The TRAIN-project: railway safety and the train driver information environment and work situation. A summary of the main results

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kecklund, L. [MTO Psychology and Swedish National Rail Administration (Sweden); Ingre, M.; Kecklund, G.; Soederstroem, M.; Aakerstedt, T. [National Inst. for Psychosocial Factors and Health (Sweden); Lindberg, E. [Swedish National Rail Administration (Sweden); Jansson, A.; Olsson, E.; Sandblad, B. [Uppsala Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Human-Computer Interaction; Almqvist, P. [Swedish State Railways (Sweden)

    2001-07-01

    The TRAIN project investigates traffic safety related risks, focusing in particular on the train driver work situation, use of information but also on the supporting safety organisation. It is an on-going project funded and managed by Swedish National Rail Administration and carried out by independent researchers. The project provides a multi-disciplinary investigation by use of a man-technology-organisation (MTO) perspective. Activities performed are task analysis, evaluation of the drivers use of information and interaction with the ATP system as well as analyses of stress, mental workload and work hours. Several methods are being used such as interviews, questionnaires, diaries, activity monitoring and videotapes. This paper gives an overview of the project as well as a short summary of the main results. Detailed results are presented in separate reports as started in the reference list. Some of the main results are that the drivers report severe problems concerning sleepiness on early morning shifts, problems with maintenance on vehicles, lack of information supporting the planning task as well as problems in understanding ATP functions. Two groups of drivers having a feed-back related as opposed to a feed-forward driving style could be identified. In conclusion there is a great need to perform more scientific studies of human factors and railway safety as well as to implement safety management programs including professional human factors competence in the railway industries. (orig.)

  10. Exploring the impacts of safety culture on immigrants' vulnerability in non-motorized crashes: a cross-sectional study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Cynthia; Lin, Haiyun; Loo, Becky P Y

    2012-02-01

    Pedestrians and cyclists are a vulnerable group of road users. Immigrants are disproportionally represented in pedestrian and cyclist crashes. We postulate that the mismatch in safety culture between countries of their origin and the U.S.A. contribute to their vulnerability in pedestrian and cyclist crashes. Over time, the differences may disappear and immigrants' traffic behavior gravitates toward those of native-borns. We describe this process as safety assimilation. Using the pedestrian and cyclist crash database in New York City between 2001 and 2003, we examined the effects of foreign-born population, their countries of origin, and time of entry into the USA on census tract-level pedestrian and cyclist crashes. We find that neighborhoods with a higher concentration of immigrants, especially those from Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, have more crashes. Our results also exhibit a pattern of the hypothesized safety assimilation process. The study suggests a higher level of vulnerability of immigrants to pedestrian and cyclist crashes. We propose that targeted policies and programs need to be developed for immigrants of different countries of origin.

  11. Schoolbus driver performance can be improved with driver training ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The Safe Travel to School Programme was recently implemented by a national child safety agency, with a focus on driver road safety awareness, defensive ... of a vehicle telematics tracking system with regular, individual driving behaviour ...

  12. Driver Behavior and Performance with Augmented Reality Pedestrian Collision Warning: An Outdoor User Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Hyungil; Gabbard, Joseph L; Anon, Alexandre Miranda; Misu, Teruhisa

    2018-04-01

    This article investigates the effects of visual warning presentation methods on human performance in augmented reality (AR) driving. An experimental user study was conducted in a parking lot where participants drove a test vehicle while braking for any cross traffic with assistance from AR visual warnings presented on a monoscopic and volumetric head-up display (HUD). Results showed that monoscopic displays can be as effective as volumetric displays for human performance in AR braking tasks. The experiment also demonstrated the benefits of conformal graphics, which are tightly integrated into the real world, such as their ability to guide drivers' attention and their positive consequences on driver behavior and performance. These findings suggest that conformal graphics presented via monoscopic HUDs can enhance driver performance by leveraging the effectiveness of monocular depth cues. The proposed approaches and methods can be used and further developed by future researchers and practitioners to better understand driver performance in AR as well as inform usability evaluation of future automotive AR applications.

  13. Pedestrian detection in infrared image using HOG and Autoencoder

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Tianbiao; Zhang, Hao; Shi, Wenjie; Zhang, Yu

    2017-11-01

    In order to guarantee the safety of driving at night, vehicle-mounted night vision system was used to detect pedestrian in front of cars and send alarm to prevent the potential dangerous. To decrease the false positive rate (FPR) and increase the true positive rate (TPR), a pedestrian detection method based on HOG and Autoencoder (HOG+Autoencoder) was presented. Firstly, the HOG features of input images were computed and encoded by Autoencoder. Then the encoded features were classified by Softmax. In the process of training, Autoencoder was trained unsupervised. Softmax was trained with supervision. Autoencoder and Softmax were stacked into a model and fine-tuned by labeled images. Experiment was conducted to compare the detection performance between HOG and HOG+Autoencoder, using images collected by vehicle-mounted infrared camera. There were 80000 images for training set and 20000 for the testing set, with a rate of 1:3 between positive and negative images. The result shows that when TPR is 95%, FPR of HOG+Autoencoder is 0.4%, while the FPR of HOG is 5% with the same TPR.

  14. Road traffic accidents and self-reported Portuguese car driver's attitudes, behaviors, and opinions: Are they related?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bon de Sousa, Teresa; Santos, Carolina; Mateus, Ceu; Areal, Alain; Trigoso, Jose; Nunes, Carla

    2016-10-02

    regard to behavioral factors meet the majority of the risk factors associated with car accidents referred to in the literature. This study highlights the relation of relatively minor accidents (the majority with no injuries) with an urban (or semi-urban) context and involving older drivers. These accidents are not usually the focus of road safety literature (mainly death and serious health loss) but, in addition to the economic costs involved, they can have a huge impact on road safety (e.g., pedestrian). Specifically, the following interventions can be proposed: more detailed clinical examinations to identify real competencies to drive especially in older drivers (active aging can constitute a new challenge in road safety and new paradigms can arise) and education campaigns on how to cope with fatigue. Future studies in large samples and not based on self-reported behaviors should be developed.

  15. Identification of contributing factors to pedestrian overpass selection

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yao Wu

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available In order to improve the efficiency of overpass and the safety level of pedestrian, this paper aims to investigate the contributing factors for selective preference of overpass. Eight overpasses were investigated in Xi’an, and a questionnaire was conducted by the pedestrians near the overpass. Totally, 1131 valid samples (873 used of overpasses and 258 non-used of overpasses were collected. Based on the data, a binary logit (BL model was developed to identify what and how the factors affect the selective preference of overpass. The BL model was calibrated by the maximum likelihood method. Likelihood ratio test and McFadden-R2 were used to analyze the goodness-of-fit of the model. The results show that the BL model has a reasonable goodness-of-fit, and the prediction accuracy of the BL model can reach 81.9%. The BL model showed that the selective preference of overpass was significantly influenced by eight factors, including gender, age, career, education level, license, detour wishes, detour distance, and crossing time. Besides, the odds ratios of significant factors were also analyzed to explain the impacts of the factors on selective preference of overpass.

  16. OLDER DRIVERS AND ADAS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ragnhild J. DAVIDSE

    2006-01-01

    Next, based on the available literature, relevant ADAS are discussed in terms of their availability, their effects on safety and the willingness of older drivers to use and buy them. One of the conclusions is that only very few of the types of support that are thought to be most beneficial to the safety of older drivers are provided by the ADAS that are currently available.

  17. Modeling Spatially Unrestricted Pedestrian Traffic on Footbridges

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zivanovic, Stana; Pavic, Aleksandar; Ingólfsson, Einar Thór

    2010-01-01

    restricted movement of pedestrians, has kept attracting attention of researchers. However, it is the normal spatially unrestricted pedestrian traffic, and its vertical dynamic loading component, that are most relevant for vibration serviceability checks for most footbridges. Despite the existence of numerous...... design procedures concerned with this loading, the current confidence in its modelling is low due to lack of verification of the models on as-built structures. This is the motivation behind reviewing the existing design procedures for modelling normal pedestrian traffic in this paper and evaluating...

  18. Calibrating cellular automaton models for pedestrians walking through corners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dias, Charitha; Lovreglio, Ruggiero

    2018-05-01

    Cellular Automata (CA) based pedestrian simulation models have gained remarkable popularity as they are simpler and easier to implement compared to other microscopic modeling approaches. However, incorporating traditional floor field representations in CA models to simulate pedestrian corner navigation behavior could result in unrealistic behaviors. Even though several previous studies have attempted to enhance CA models to realistically simulate pedestrian maneuvers around bends, such modifications have not been calibrated or validated against empirical data. In this study, two static floor field (SFF) representations, namely 'discrete representation' and 'continuous representation', are calibrated for CA-models to represent pedestrians' walking behavior around 90° bends. Trajectory data collected through a controlled experiment are used to calibrate these model representations. Calibration results indicate that although both floor field representations can represent pedestrians' corner navigation behavior, the 'continuous' representation fits the data better. Output of this study could be beneficial for enhancing the reliability of existing CA-based models by representing pedestrians' corner navigation behaviors more realistically.

  19. Handbook of driver assistance systems basic information, components and systems for active safety and comfort

    CERN Document Server

    Hakuli, Stephan; Lotz, Felix; Singer, Christina

    2016-01-01

    This fundamental work explains in detail systems for active safety and driver assistance, considering both their structure and their function. These include the well-known standard systems such as Anti-lock braking system (ABS), Electronic Stability Control (ESC) or Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC). But it includes also new systems for protecting collisions protection, for changing the lane, or for convenient parking. The book aims at giving a complete picture focusing on the entire system. First, it describes the components which are necessary for assistance systems, such as sensors, actuators, mechatronic subsystems, and control elements. Then, it explains key features for the user-friendly design of human-machine interfaces between driver and assistance system. Finally, important characteristic features of driver assistance systems for particular vehicles are presented: Systems for commercial vehicles and motorcycles.

  20. US policies to enhance older driver safety: a systematic review of the literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dugan, Elizabeth; Barton, Kelli N; Coyle, Caitlin; Lee, Chae Man

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature related to state policies concerning older drivers and to draw policy conclusions about which policies appear to work to reduce older driver crashes and to identify areas needed for further research. Specific policies examined in this paper concern medical reporting and medical review, license renewal processes, and driver testing. A study was included in the systematic review if it met the following criteria: published in English between 1991and January 2013; included data on human subjects aged 65 and older residing in the United States; included information on at least one policy related to older drivers; and had a transportation-related outcome variable (e.g., crash, fatality, renewal). A total of 29 studies met inclusion criteria. Twenty-two studies investigated license renewal and seven articles examined medical reporting. In-person license renewal requirements were associated with reduced risk for fatal crashes. Restricted licenses were associated with reduced number of miles driven per week. More intensive renewal requirements and being the subject of a medical report to the licensing authority was associated with delicensure. Given the importance of driving to mobility, quality of life, and public safety, more research is needed.

  1. Research on the Effects of Heterogeneity on Pedestrian Dynamics in Walkway of Subway Station

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haoling Wu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The major objective of this paper is to study the effects of heterogeneity on pedestrian dynamics in walkway of subway station. We analyze the observed data of the selected facility and find that walking speed and occupied space were varied in the population. In reality, pedestrians are heterogeneous individuals with different attributes. However, the research on how the heterogeneity affects the pedestrian dynamics in facilities of subway stations is insufficient. The improved floor field model is therefore presented to explore the effects of heterogeneity. Pedestrians are classified into pedestrians walking in pairs, fast pedestrians, and ordinary pedestrians. For convenience, they are denoted as P-pedestrians, F-pedestrians, and O-pedestrians, respectively. The proposed model is validated under homogeneous and heterogeneous conditions. Three pedestrian compositions are simulated to analyze the effects of heterogeneity on pedestrian dynamics. The results show that P-pedestrians have negative effect and F-pedestrians have positive effect. All of the results in this paper indicate that the capacity of walkway is not a constant value. It changes with different component proportions of heterogeneous pedestrians. The heterogeneity of pedestrian has an important influence on the pedestrian dynamics in the walkway of the subway station.

  2. Evaluating driver reactions to new vehicle technologies intended to increase safety and mobility across the lifespan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-05-01

    Personal vehicle manufactures are introducing a wide range of new technologies that are : intended to increase the safety, comfort, and mobility of drivers of all ages. Examples range from : semi-autonomous technologies such as adaptive cruise contro...

  3. Exploring older driver crash trend: New Jersey case study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vanvi Trieu

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Older drivers age 65 and above are known to experience greater risk on the roadway as well as increasing the risk to other roadway users. Within the next 20 years, their population is expected to increase from 41 million in 2011 to 70 million in 2030. To address this foreseeable change, the nation's recent Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21 act requires state and local governments to examine older drivers and pedestrian risks and implement countermeasures as appropriate. This research was conducted to assist agencies in strategising for future plans, programmes and initiatives to better address the problem presented. This was accomplished by performing a detailed engineering analysis on crash data of older drivers over a 10-year period (2003–2012 from the state of New Jersey to identify crash trends and characteristics. A major finding from this research was the increase in fatal crashes of older drivers as a function of age. Top-ranking collision types with other vehicles and non-vehicles were identified. Crashes as a function of seasonal change, climate and lighting conditions were also examined.

  4. Traffic signal design and simulation for vulnerable road users safety and bus preemption

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lo, Shih-Ching; Huang, Hsieh-Chu

    2015-01-01

    Mostly, pedestrian car accidents occurred at a signalized interaction is because pedestrians cannot across the intersection safely within the green light. From the viewpoint of pedestrian, there might have two reasons. The first one is pedestrians cannot speed up to across the intersection, such as the elders. The other reason is pedestrians do not sense that the signal phase is going to change and their right-of-way is going to be lost. Developing signal logic to protect pedestrian, who is crossing an intersection is the first purpose of this study. In addition, to improve the reliability and reduce delay of public transportation service is the second purpose. Therefore, bus preemption is also considered in the designed signal logic. In this study, the traffic data of the intersection of Chong-Qing North Road and Min-Zu West Road, Taipei, Taiwan, is employed to calibrate and validate the signal logic by simulation. VISSIM 5.20, which is a microscopic traffic simulation software, is employed to simulate the signal logic. From the simulated results, the signal logic presented in this study can protect pedestrians crossing the intersection successfully. The design of bus preemption can reduce the average delay. However, the pedestrian safety and bus preemption signal will influence the average delay of cars largely. Thus, whether applying the pedestrian safety and bus preemption signal logic to an intersection or not should be evaluated carefully

  5. Traffic signal design and simulation for vulnerable road users safety and bus preemption

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lo, Shih-Ching; Huang, Hsieh-Chu [Department of Transportation Technology and Logistics Management, Chung Hua University, No. 707, Sec. 2, WuFu Rd., Hsinchu, 300, Taiwan (China)

    2015-01-22

    Mostly, pedestrian car accidents occurred at a signalized interaction is because pedestrians cannot across the intersection safely within the green light. From the viewpoint of pedestrian, there might have two reasons. The first one is pedestrians cannot speed up to across the intersection, such as the elders. The other reason is pedestrians do not sense that the signal phase is going to change and their right-of-way is going to be lost. Developing signal logic to protect pedestrian, who is crossing an intersection is the first purpose of this study. In addition, to improve the reliability and reduce delay of public transportation service is the second purpose. Therefore, bus preemption is also considered in the designed signal logic. In this study, the traffic data of the intersection of Chong-Qing North Road and Min-Zu West Road, Taipei, Taiwan, is employed to calibrate and validate the signal logic by simulation. VISSIM 5.20, which is a microscopic traffic simulation software, is employed to simulate the signal logic. From the simulated results, the signal logic presented in this study can protect pedestrians crossing the intersection successfully. The design of bus preemption can reduce the average delay. However, the pedestrian safety and bus preemption signal will influence the average delay of cars largely. Thus, whether applying the pedestrian safety and bus preemption signal logic to an intersection or not should be evaluated carefully.

  6. Identification and Prediction of Large Pedestrian Flow in Urban Areas Based on a Hybrid Detection Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kaisheng Zhang

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Recently, population density has grown quickly with the increasing acceleration of urbanization. At the same time, overcrowded situations are more likely to occur in populous urban areas, increasing the risk of accidents. This paper proposes a synthetic approach to recognize and identify the large pedestrian flow. In particular, a hybrid pedestrian flow detection model was constructed by analyzing real data from major mobile phone operators in China, including information from smartphones and base stations (BS. With the hybrid model, the Log Distance Path Loss (LDPL model was used to estimate the pedestrian density from raw network data, and retrieve information with the Gaussian Progress (GP through supervised learning. Temporal-spatial prediction of the pedestrian data was carried out with Machine Learning (ML approaches. Finally, a case study of a real Central Business District (CBD scenario in Shanghai, China using records of millions of cell phone users was conducted. The results showed that the new approach significantly increases the utility and capacity of the mobile network. A more reasonable overcrowding detection and alert system can be developed to improve safety in subway lines and other hotspot landmark areas, such as the Bundle, People’s Square or Disneyland, where a large passenger flow generally exists.

  7. 45 CFR 1310.21 - Safety education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Safety education. 1310.21 Section 1310.21 Public... PROGRAM HEAD START TRANSPORTATION Special Requirements § 1310.21 Safety education. (a) Each agency must... children. The required transportation and pedestrian safety education of children and parents, except for...

  8. Education for older drivers in the future

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Esko Keskinen

    2014-07-01

    Five presumptions have to be considered when addressing future education for older drivers: 1. Driving a car will continue to be one element of mobility in the future; 2. Older people want to be able to keep driving; 3. Safety will be an even more important factor in mobility in the future; 4. Ecological values will be more important in the future; and 5. Innovative technological applications will be more important in the future. Hierarchical models of driving are suitable in increasing understanding of older drivers' needs and abilities. The highest levels of the driving hierarchy in the Goals for Driver Education (GDE model are especially important for the safety of both young and elderly drivers. In these highest levels goals for life, skills for living, and social environment affect everyday decision making in general but also driving, which has an impact on driver safety. Giving up driving is very much a social decision and should be taken as such. However, the highest levels of the driving hierarchy are by nature inaccessible to teacher-centered instruction These levels require more coaching-like education methods where the learner takes the central role and the teacher helps the drivers understand their own abilities and limitations in traffic. Testing and selecting older drivers to enhance safety is not, according to research findings, working in a proper way. Older drivers do not so much need more information concerning traffic rules, etc., but rather better understanding of themselves, their health restrictions, their skills, and their abilities to ensure daily mobility. Their closest companions also need tools to help them in discussions of traffic safety issues affecting older drivers.

  9. Robust Pedestrian Classification Based on Hierarchical Kernel Sparse Representation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rui Sun

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Vision-based pedestrian detection has become an active topic in computer vision and autonomous vehicles. It aims at detecting pedestrians appearing ahead of the vehicle using a camera so that autonomous vehicles can assess the danger and take action. Due to varied illumination and appearance, complex background and occlusion pedestrian detection in outdoor environments is a difficult problem. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchical feature extraction and weighted kernel sparse representation model for pedestrian classification. Initially, hierarchical feature extraction based on a CENTRIST descriptor is used to capture discriminative structures. A max pooling operation is used to enhance the invariance of varying appearance. Then, a kernel sparse representation model is proposed to fully exploit the discrimination information embedded in the hierarchical local features, and a Gaussian weight function as the measure to effectively handle the occlusion in pedestrian images. Extensive experiments are conducted on benchmark databases, including INRIA, Daimler, an artificially generated dataset and a real occluded dataset, demonstrating the more robust performance of the proposed method compared to state-of-the-art pedestrian classification methods.

  10. Evaluation of pedestrian mid-block road crossing behaviour using artificial neural network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    B. Raghuram Kadali

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrians usually cross the road at mid-block locations in India because of the ease and convenience to reach their destination as compared to intersection locations. It is important to evaluate the pedestrian gap acceptance behavior at mid-block locations because of inadequate vehicular gaps under mixed traffic condition, which translates into the pedestrian road crossing behavior. The present study examines the pedestrian gap acceptance behaviour by employing an artificial neural network (ANN model for understanding the decision making process of pedestrians, i.e., acceptance or rejection of vehicular gaps at a mid-block location. From the results it has been found that the pedestrian rolling gap, frequency of attempt, vehicular gap size, pedestrian speed change condition and vehicle speed have major role in pedestrian gap acceptance. These results can lead to a better design of pedestrian crossing facilities where adequate gaps are not available in vehicular flow at mid-block crosswalk locations.

  11. The risk of pedestrian collisions with peripheral visual field loss

    OpenAIRE

    Peli, Eli; Apfelbaum, Henry; Berson, Eliot L.; Goldstein, Robert B.

    2016-01-01

    Patients with peripheral field loss complain of colliding with other pedestrians in open-space environments such as shopping malls. Field expansion devices (e.g., prisms) can create artificial peripheral islands of vision. We investigated the visual angle at which these islands can be most effective for avoiding pedestrian collisions, by modeling the collision risk density as a function of bearing angle of pedestrians relative to the patient. Pedestrians at all possible locations were assumed...

  12. In pedestrian crashes, it's vehicle speed that matters the most

    Science.gov (United States)

    2000-05-13

    A recently prepared report on pedestrian injuries provides these two main findings: 1) regardless of age, pedestrians involved in crashes are more likely to be killed as vehicle speeds increase; and 2) in crashes at any speed, older pedestrians are m...

  13. Assessment on the pedestrian risk during floods based on numerical simulation - A case study in Jinan City

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, T.; Xu, Z.; Hong, S.

    2017-12-01

    Flood disasters frequently attack the urban area in Jinan City during past years, and the city is faced with severe road flooding which greatly threaten pedestrians' safety. Therefore, it is of great significance to investigate the pedestrian risk during floods under specific topographic condition. In this study, a model coupled hydrological and hydrodynamic processes is developed in the study area to simulate the flood routing process on the road for the "7.18" rainstorm and validated with post-disaster damage survey information. The risk of pedestrian is estimated with a flood risk assessment model. The result shows that the coupled model performs well in the rainstorm flood process. On the basis of the simulation result, the areas with extreme risk, medium risk, and mild risk are identified, respectively. Regions with high risk are generally located near the mountain front area with steep slopes. This study will provide scientific support for the flood control and disaster reduction in Jinan City.

  14. An analysis of driving and working hour on commercial motor vehicle driver safety using naturalistic data collection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soccolich, Susan A; Blanco, Myra; Hanowski, Richard J; Olson, Rebecca L; Morgan, Justin F; Guo, Feng; Wu, Shih-Ching

    2013-09-01

    Current hours-of-service (HOS) regulations prescribe limits to commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers' operating hours. By using naturalistic-data-collection, researchers were able to assess activities performed in the 14-h workday and the relationship between safety-critical events (SCEs) and driving hours, work hours, and breaks. The data used in the analyses were collected in the Naturalistic Truck Driving Study and included 97 drivers and about 735,000 miles of continuous driving data. An assessment of the drivers' workday determined that, on average, drivers spent 66% of their shift driving, 23% in non-driving work, and 11% resting. Analyses evaluating the relationship between driving hours (i.e., driving only) and SCE risk found a time-on-task effect across hours, with no significant difference in safety outcomes between 11th driving hour and driving hours 8, 9 or 10. Analyses on work hours (i.e., driving in addition to non-driving work) found that risk of being involved in an SCE generally increased as work hours increased. This suggests that time-on-task effects may not be related to driving hours alone, but implies an interaction between driving hours and work hours: if a driver begins the day with several hours of non-driving work, followed by driving that goes deep into the 14-h workday, SCE risk was found to increase. Breaks from driving were found to be beneficial in reducing SCEs (during 1-h window after a break) and were effective in counteracting the negative effects of time-on-task. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Connected vehicle applications : safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-01

    Connected vehicle safety applications are designed to increase situational awareness : and reduce or eliminate crashes through vehicle-to-infrastructure, vehicle-to-vehicle, : and vehicle-to-pedestrian data transmissions. Applications support advisor...

  16. A Vehicle Active Safety Model: Vehicle Speed Control Based on Driver Vigilance Detection Using Wearable EEG and Sparse Representation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zutao Zhang

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we present a vehicle active safety model for vehicle speed control based on driver vigilance detection using low-cost, comfortable, wearable electroencephalographic (EEG sensors and sparse representation. The proposed system consists of three main steps, namely wireless wearable EEG collection, driver vigilance detection, and vehicle speed control strategy. First of all, a homemade low-cost comfortable wearable brain-computer interface (BCI system with eight channels is designed for collecting the driver’s EEG signal. Second, wavelet de-noising and down-sample algorithms are utilized to enhance the quality of EEG data, and Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT is adopted to extract the EEG power spectrum density (PSD. In this step, sparse representation classification combined with k-singular value decomposition (KSVD is firstly introduced in PSD to estimate the driver’s vigilance level. Finally, a novel safety strategy of vehicle speed control, which controls the electronic throttle opening and automatic braking after driver fatigue detection using the above method, is presented to avoid serious collisions and traffic accidents. The simulation and practical testing results demonstrate the feasibility of the vehicle active safety model.

  17. Update schemes of multi-velocity floor field cellular automaton for pedestrian dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luo, Lin; Fu, Zhijian; Cheng, Han; Yang, Lizhong

    2018-02-01

    Modeling pedestrian movement is an interesting problem both in statistical physics and in computational physics. Update schemes of cellular automaton (CA) models for pedestrian dynamics govern the schedule of pedestrian movement. Usually, different update schemes make the models behave in different ways, which should be carefully recalibrated. Thus, in this paper, we investigated the influence of four different update schemes, namely parallel/synchronous scheme, random scheme, order-sequential scheme and shuffled scheme, on pedestrian dynamics. The multi-velocity floor field cellular automaton (FFCA) considering the changes of pedestrians' moving properties along walking paths and heterogeneity of pedestrians' walking abilities was used. As for parallel scheme only, the collisions detection and resolution should be considered, resulting in a great difference from any other update schemes. For pedestrian evacuation, the evacuation time is enlarged, and the difference in pedestrians' walking abilities is better reflected, under parallel scheme. In face of a bottleneck, for example a exit, using a parallel scheme leads to a longer congestion period and a more dispersive density distribution. The exit flow and the space-time distribution of density and velocity have significant discrepancies under four different update schemes when we simulate pedestrian flow with high desired velocity. Update schemes may have no influence on pedestrians in simulation to create tendency to follow others, but sequential and shuffled update scheme may enhance the effect of pedestrians' familiarity with environments.

  18. Safety of operations in the manufacture of driver fuel for the first charge of the Dragon Reactor and modifications to the safety document for the Dragon Fuel Element Production Building

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Beutler, H.; Cross, J.; Flamm, J.

    1965-01-01

    The manufacture of the zirconium containing 'driver' fuel and fuel elements for the First Charge of the Dragon Reactor Experiment has been completed without incident. This is a report on the safety of operations in the Dragon Fuel Element Production Building during an approximately six month period when the 'driver' fuel was manufactured and 25 elements containing this fuel were assembled and exported to the Reactor Building. The opportunity is taken to bring the Safety Document up-to-date and to report on any significant operational failures of equipment. (author)

  19. Traffic Safety through Driver Assistance and Intelligence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heiner Bubb

    2011-05-01

    BMW, Daimler, Audi, Citroen, Lexus, VW, Opel, Peugeot, Renault, Chevrolet, Saab and Bosch. Both the contributions of research work concerning driving behavior analysis and driver assistance systems have to be aligned with a permanently updated interaction within the system of driver, vehicle and road traffic environment.

  20. [Pain patients in street traffic. Do analgesics impair driving safety?].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sohn, W

    2003-06-05

    Analgesics--in particular when self-prescribed or taken over the long term--may have a negative effect on safety on the road. This applies not only to vehicle drivers, but also to cyclists and pedestrians. Psychotropic effects of analgesics of all three WHO categories play a major causal role. Impairments may take the form of sleepiness, impaired vision, giddiness, loss of muscular tone or cardiovascular reactions. On the other hand, untreated severe pain has a high risk potential, since it may reduce both cognitive and psychomotoric performance. During the stabilization phase or dose adjustment of opioids, the patient must cautioned not to drive, and particular care must be taken in patients on concomitant or long-term medication or drinking excessive alcohol. In the last resort, the prescription of an analgesic is an individual decision involving both physician and patient.

  1. Spatial Analysis in Determining Physical Factors of Pedestrian Space Livability, Case Study: Pedestrian Space on Jalan Kemasan, Yogyakarta

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fauzi, A. F.; Aditianata, A.

    2018-02-01

    The existence of street as a place to perform various human activities becomes an important issue nowadays. In the last few decades, cars and motorcycles dominate streets in various cities in the world. On the other hand, human activity on the street is the determinant of the city livability. Previous research has pointed out that if there is lots of human activity in the street, then the city will be interesting. Otherwise, if the street has no activity, then the city will be boring. Learning from that statement, now various cities in the world are developing the concept of livable streets. Livable streets shown by diversity of human activities conducted in the streets’ pedestrian space. In Yogyakarta, one of the streets shown diversity of human activities is Jalan Kemasan. This study attempts to determine the physical factors of pedestrian space affecting the livability in Jalan Kemasan Yogyakarta through spatial analysis. Spatial analysis was performed by overlay technique between liveable point (activity diversity) distribution map and variable distribution map. Those physical pedestrian space research variable included element of shading, street vendors, building setback, seat location, divider between street and pedestrian way, and mixed use building function. More diverse the activity of one variable, then those variable are more affected then others. Overlay result then strengthened by field observation to qualitatively ensure the deduction. In the end, this research will provide valuable input for street and pedestrian space planning that is comfortable for human activities.

  2. Cellular automaton simulation of counter flow with paired pedestrians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hui Xiong

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Knowledge on pedestrian behavior is the basis to build decision support system for crowd evacuation management in emergency. In this paper, the impact of paired walking behavior on pedestrian counter flow in a channel is studied. The pedestrian walking behaviors are simulated by the cellular automaton model and the pedestrians are classified as single right walker, single left walker, paired right walker, and paired left walker. Single walker can move forward, leftward, rightward or stand still. The paired pedestrians are considered as a combined unit similar to the single walker in terms of route choice and they can move to the same direction simultaneously. It is found that flow and velocity decrease with increase of the paired rate in case of stable density. Simulation results reveal the phase transitions in terms of density from free flow to the unstable flow and from the unstable flow to the congestion flow. However, the critical densities of phase transition are unaffected by the channel size.

  3. Automated and connected vehicle (AV/CV) test bed to improve transit, bicycle, and pedestrian safety : technical report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-02-01

    Crashes involving transit vehicles, bicyclists, and pedestrians are a concern in Texas, especially in urban areas. This research explored the potential of automated and connected vehicle (AV/CV) technology to reduce or eliminate these crashes. The pr...

  4. Oriented regions grouping based candidate proposal for infrared pedestrian detection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jiangtao; Zhang, Jingai; Li, Huaijiang

    2018-04-01

    Effectively and accurately locating the positions of pedestrian candidates in image is a key task for the infrared pedestrian detection system. In this work, a novel similarity measuring metric is designed. Based on the selective search scheme, the developed similarity measuring metric is utilized to yield the possible locations for pedestrian candidate. Besides this, corresponding diversification strategies are also provided according to the characteristics of the infrared thermal imaging system. Experimental results indicate that the presented scheme can achieve more efficient outputs than the traditional selective search methodology for the infrared pedestrian detection task.

  5. Modeling Unidirectional Pedestrian Movement: An Investigation of Diffusion Behavior in the Built Environment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ying Liu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Unidirectional pedestrian movement is a special phenomenon in the evacuation process of large public buildings and urban environments at pedestrian scale. Several macroscopic models for collective behaviors have been built to predict pedestrian flow. However, current models do not explain the diffusion behavior in pedestrian crowd movement, which can be important in representing spatial-temporal crowd density differentiation in the movement process. This study builds a macroscopic model for describing crowd diffusion behavior and evaluating unidirectional pedestrian flow. The proposed model employs discretization of time and walking speed in geometric distribution to calculate downstream pedestrian crowd flow and analyze movement process based on upstream number of pedestrians and average walking speed. The simulated results are calibrated with video observation data in a baseball stadium to verify the model precision. Statistical results have verified that the proposed pedestrian diffusion model could accurately describe pedestrian macromovement behavior within the margin of error.

  6. Pedestrian count estimation using texture feature with spatial distribution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hongyu Hu

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available We present a novel pedestrian count estimation approach based on global image descriptors formed from multi-scale texture features that considers spatial distribution. For regions of interest, local texture features are represented based on histograms of multi-scale block local binary pattern, which jointly constitute the feature vector of the whole image. Therefore, to achieve an effective estimation of pedestrian count, principal component analysis is used to reduce the dimension of the global representation features, and a fitting model between image global features and pedestrian count is constructed via support vector regression. The experimental result shows that the proposed method exhibits high accuracy on pedestrian count estimation and can be applied well in the real world.

  7. The Role of Fear Appeals in Improving Driver Safety: A Review of the Effectiveness of Fear-Arousing (Threat) Appeals in Road Safety Advertising

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lewis, I.; Watson, B.; Tay, R.; White, K. M.

    2007-01-01

    This paper reviews theoretical and empirical evidence relating to the effectiveness of fear (threat) appeals in improving driver safety. The results of the review highlight the mixed and inconsistent findings that have been reported in the literature. While fear arousal appears important for attracting attention, its contribution to behaviour…

  8. Effect of prediction on the self-organization of pedestrian counter flow

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Ziyang; Zhao Hui; Ma Jian; Qin Yong; Jia Limin

    2012-01-01

    Pedestrians may predict the behavior of others and then adjust their movement accordingly to avoid potential conflicts in advance. Motivated by this fact, we propose a predictive control theory-based pedestrian counter flow model, which describes the predictive mechanism underlying pedestrian self-organization phenomena. In this model, a pedestrian will make in-advance-avoid behavior based on the estimation of future moving gain within a given predictive length to reduce potential conflicts. The future gain in the present model is affected by three factors, i.e. the predictive length, the smooth degree of entrance and the influential area of coming pedestrians. Simulation results of the model show that increasing predictive length has a remarkable effect on reducing conflicts, improving pedestrian velocity, smoothing pedestrian movement and stabilizing the self-organized lanes. When enlarging the influential area of coming pedestrians, pedestrians tend to aggregate to the formed self-organized lanes, which makes the lanes wider and the lane number reduced. Interestingly, moderate enlargement (of the influential area) will reduce conflicts significantly, while excessive enlargement will lead to an increase in conflicts. We also discuss the predictive effect toward the smooth degree of entrance. When there are some formed self-organized lanes in the system, the effect is significant, and it will make the lanes more regular and stable, while when the existing lanes are unstable, the effect has little impact on the system. (paper)

  9. Training strategy for convolutional neural networks in pedestrian gender classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Choon-Boon; Tay, Yong-Haur; Goi, Bok-Min

    2017-06-01

    In this work, we studied a strategy for training a convolutional neural network in pedestrian gender classification with limited amount of labeled training data. Unsupervised learning by k-means clustering on pedestrian images was used to learn the filters to initialize the first layer of the network. As a form of pre-training, supervised learning for the related task of pedestrian classification was performed. Finally, the network was fine-tuned for gender classification. We found that this strategy improved the network's generalization ability in gender classification, achieving better test results when compared to random weights initialization and slightly more beneficial than merely initializing the first layer filters by unsupervised learning. This shows that unsupervised learning followed by pre-training with pedestrian images is an effective strategy to learn useful features for pedestrian gender classification.

  10. Dual effects of guide-based guidance on pedestrian evacuation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ma, Yi, E-mail: yima23-c@my.cityu.edu.hk; Lee, Eric Wai Ming; Shi, Meng

    2017-06-15

    This study investigates the effects of guide-based guidance on the pedestrian evacuation under limited visibility via the simulations based on an extended social force model. The results show that the effects of guides on the pedestrian evacuation under limited visibility are dual, and related to the neighbor density within the visual field. On the one hand, in many cases, the effects of guides are positive, particularly when the neighbor density within the visual field is moderate; in this case, a few guides can already assist the evacuation effectively and efficiently. However, when the neighbor density within the visual field is particularly small or large, the effects of guides may be adverse and make the evacuation time longer. Our results not only provide a new insight into the effects of guides on the pedestrian evacuation under limited visibility, but also give some practical suggestions as to how to assign guides to assist the evacuation under different evacuation conditions. - Highlights: • Extended social force model is used to simulate guided pedestrian evacuation. • Effects of guides on pedestrian evacuation under limited visibility are dual. • Effects of guides on pedestrian evacuation under limited visibility are related to neighbor density within visual field.

  11. Pedestrian Tracking Based on Camshift with Kalman Prediction for Autonomous Vehicles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lie Guo

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrian detection and tracking is the key to autonomous vehicle navigation systems avoiding potentially dangerous situations. Firstly, the probability distribution of colour information is established after a pedestrian is located in an image. Then the detected results are utilized to initialize a Kalman filter to predict the possible position of the pedestrian centroid in the future frame. A Camshift tracking algorithm is used to track the pedestrian in the specific search window of the next frame based on the prediction results. The actual position of the pedestrian centroid is output from the Camshift tracking algorithm to update the gain and error covariance matrix of the Kalman filter. Experimental results in real traffic situations show the proposed pedestrian tracking algorithm can achieve good performance even when they are partly occluded in inconsistent illumination circumstances.

  12. Linking pedestrian flow characteristics with stepping locomotion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jiayue; Boltes, Maik; Seyfried, Armin; Zhang, Jun; Ziemer, Verena; Weng, Wenguo

    2018-06-01

    While properties of human traffic flow are described by speed, density and flow, the locomotion of pedestrian is based on steps. To relate characteristics of human locomotor system with properties of human traffic flow, this paper aims to connect gait characteristics like step length, step frequency, swaying amplitude and synchronization with speed and density and thus to build a ground for advanced pedestrian models. For this aim, observational and experimental study on the single-file movement of pedestrians at different densities is conducted. Methods to measure step length, step frequency, swaying amplitude and step synchronization are proposed by means of trajectories of the head. Mathematical models for the relations of step length or frequency and speed are evaluated. The problem how step length and step duration are influenced by factors like body height and density is investigated. It is shown that the effect of body height on step length and step duration changes with density. Furthermore, two different types of step in-phase synchronization between two successive pedestrians are observed and the influence of step synchronization on step length is examined.

  13. Disparities in pedestrian streetscape environments by income and race/ethnicity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christina M. Thornton

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Growing evidence suggests that microscale pedestrian environment features, such as sidewalk quality, crosswalks, and neighborhood esthetics, may affect residents’ physical activity. This study examined whether disparities in microscale pedestrian features existed between neighborhoods of differing socioeconomic and racial/ethnic composition. Using the validated Microscale Audit of Pedestrian Streetscapes (MAPS, pedestrian environment features were assessed by trained observers along 1/4-mile routes (N=2117 in neighborhoods in three US metropolitan regions (San Diego, Seattle, and Baltimore during 2009–2010. Neighborhoods, defined as Census block groups, were selected to maximize variability in median income and macroscale walkability factors (e.g., density. Mixed-model linear regression analyses explored main and interaction effects of income and race/ethnicity separately by region. Across all three regions, low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods with a high proportion of racial/ethnic minorities had poorer esthetics and social elements (e.g., graffiti, broken windows, litter than neighborhoods with higher median income or fewer racial/ethnic minorities (p<.05. However, there were also instances where neighborhoods with higher incomes and fewer racial/ethnic minorities had worse or absent pedestrian amenities such as sidewalks, crosswalks, and intersections (p<.05. Overall, disparities in microscale pedestrian features occurred more frequently in residential as compared to mixed-use routes with one or more commercial destination. However, considerable variation existed between regions as to which microscale pedestrian features were unfavorable and whether the unfavorable features were associated with neighborhood income or racial/ethnic composition. The variation in pedestrian streetscapes across cities suggests that findings from single-city studies are not generalizable. Local streetscape audits are recommended to identify disparities

  14. Pedestrian-induced lateral vibrations of footbridges

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ingólfsson, Einar Thór

    by pedestrians during walking on a laterally moving treadmill. Two different conditions are investigated; initially the treadmill is fixed and then it is laterally driven in a sinusoidal motion at varying combinations of frequencies (0.33 – 1.07 Hz) and amplitudes (4.5 – 48mm). The experimental campaign involved...... is triggered. This disproportionate increase in the lateral vibration response is caused by a dynamic interaction between the pedestrian and the laterally moving structure, although the governing mechanism which generates the load is still disputed. In this thesis, a comprehensive literature review...... 71 test subjects who covered approximately 55 km of walking distributed on almost 5000 individual tests. An in-depth analysis of the movement of the pedestrians that participated in the experimental campaign reveal that synchronisation is not a pre-condition for the ix development of large amplitude...

  15. Cyclists’ Anger As Determinant of Near Misses Involving Different Road Users

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Víctor Marín Puchades

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Road anger constitutes one of the determinant factors related to safety outcomes (e.g., accidents, near misses. Although cyclists are considered vulnerable road users due to their relatively high rate of fatalities in traffic, previous research has solely focused on car drivers, and no study has yet investigated the effect of anger on cyclists’ safety outcomes. The present research aims to investigate, for the first time, the effects of cycling anger toward different types of road users on near misses involving such road users and near misses in general. Using a daily diary web-based questionnaire, we collected data about daily trips, bicycle use, near misses experienced, cyclist’s anger and demographic information from 254 Spanish cyclists. Poisson regression was used to assess the association of cycling anger with near misses, which is a count variable. No relationship was found between general cycling anger and near misses occurrence. Anger toward specific road users had different effects on the probability of near misses with different road users. Anger toward the interaction with car drivers increased the probability of near misses involving cyclists and pedestrians. Anger toward interaction with pedestrians was associated with higher probability of near misses with pedestrians. Anger toward cyclists exerted no effect on the probability of near misses with any road user (i.e., car drivers, cyclists or pedestrians, whereas anger toward the interactions with the police had a diminishing effect on the occurrence of near misses’ involving all types of road users. The present study demonstrated that the effect of road anger on safety outcomes among cyclists is different from that of motorists. Moreover, the target of anger played an important role on safety both for the cyclist and the specific road users. Possible explanations for these differences are based on the difference in status and power with motorists, as well as on the potential

  16. Pedestrian injury risk functions based on contour lines of equal injury severity using real world pedestrian/passenger-car accident data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niebuhr, Tobias; Junge, Mirko; Achmus, Stefanie

    2013-01-01

    Injury risk assessment plays a pivotal role in the assessment of the effectiveness of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) as they specify the injury reduction potential of the system. The usual way to describe injury risks is by use of injury risk functions, i.e. specifying the probability of an injury of a given severity occurring at a specific technical accident severity (collision speed). A method for the generation of a family of risk functions for different levels of injury severity is developed. The injury severity levels are determined by use of a rescaled version of the Injury Severity Score (ISS) namely the ISSx. The injury risk curves for each collision speed is then obtained by fixing the boundary conditions and use of a case-by-case validated GIDAS subset of pedestrian-car accidents (N=852). The resultant functions are of exponential form as opposed to the frequently used logistic regression form. The exponential approach in combination with the critical speed value creates a new injury risk pattern better fitting for high speed/high energy crashes. Presented is a family of pedestrian injury risk functions for an arbitrary injury severity. Thus, the effectiveness of an ADAS can be assessed for mitigation of different injury severities using the same injury risk function and relying on the internal soundness of the risk function with regard to different injury severity levels. For the assessment of emergency braking ADAS, a Zone of Effective Endangerment Increase (ZEEI), the speed interval in which a one percent speed increase results at least in a one percent of injury risk increase, is defined. The methodology presented is kept in such general terms that a direct adaption to other accident configurations is easily done.

  17. 49 CFR 396.13 - Driver inspection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY REGULATIONS INSPECTION, REPAIR, AND MAINTENANCE § 396.13 Driver inspection. Before driving a motor vehicle, the driver shall: (a) Be satisfied that the motor vehicle is in safe operating condition; (b) Review the last driver vehicle inspection...

  18. Study on bi-directional pedestrian movement using ant algorithms

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gokce, Sibel; Kayacan, Ozhan

    2016-01-01

    A cellular automata model is proposed to simulate bi-directional pedestrian flow. Pedestrian movement is investigated by using ant algorithms. Ants communicate with each other by dropping a chemical, called a pheromone, on the substrate while crawling forward. Similarly, it is considered that oppositely moving pedestrians drop ‘visual pheromones’ on their way and the visual pheromones might cause attractive or repulsive interactions. This pheromenon is introduced into modelling the pedestrians’ walking preference. In this way, the decision-making process of pedestrians will be based on ‘the instinct of following’. At some densities, the relationships of velocity–density and flux–density are analyzed for different evaporation rates of visual pheromones. Lane formation and phase transition are observed for certain evaporation rates of visual pheromones. (paper)

  19. Mapping patterns of pedestrian fatal accidents in Israel

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Prato, Carlo Giacomo; Gitelman, Victoria; Bekhor, Shlomo

    2012-01-01

    This study intends to provide insight into pedestrian accidents by uncovering their patterns in order to design preventive measures and to allocate resources for identified problems. Kohonen neural networks are applied to a database of pedestrian fatal accidents occurred during the four-year peri...

  20. [Parental practices and pedestrian risk behaviors in Chilean adolescents].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Herrera, Andrea C; Repetto, Paula B

    2014-08-01

    Traffic accidents are the second leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults in Chile. However, few studies have examined this behavior among this age group. Parental practices have a great influence on risk behaviors in adolescents, such as substance use, sexuality and violence, among others. Specifically, we propose that these practices will influence pedestrian risk behaviors among adolescents. To study the role of parental practices such as mother and father support, and behavioral control (monitoring and presence of rules) in pedestrian risk behaviors of teenagers. A sample of 470 adolescents attending schools in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile were studied. They answered a self-administered questionnaire in which they were asked about parental practices and pedestrian risk behaviors. Analyses were performed using descriptive and inferential statistics, using multiple regression. Paternal support and the presence of rules were protective factors for pedestrian risky behaviors. However, maternal support or monitoring did not influence these behaviors. Parental practices influence pedestrian behaviors of teenagers. The study provides further evidence for the importance of these practices in the development of behavioral self-regulation.

  1. A heterogeneous lattice gas model for simulating pedestrian evacuation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Xiwei; Chen, Jianqiao; Zheng, Yaochen; Wei, Junhong

    2012-02-01

    Based on the cellular automata method (CA model) and the mobile lattice gas model (MLG model), we have developed a heterogeneous lattice gas model for simulating pedestrian evacuation processes in an emergency. A local population density concept is introduced first. The update rule in the new model depends on the local population density and the exit crowded degree factor. The drift D, which is one of the key parameters influencing the evacuation process, is allowed to change according to the local population density of the pedestrians. Interactions including attraction, repulsion, and friction between every two pedestrians and those between a pedestrian and the building wall are described by a nonlinear function of the corresponding distance, and the repulsion forces increase sharply as the distances get small. A critical force of injury is introduced into the model, and its effects on the evacuation process are investigated. The model proposed has heterogeneous features as compared to the MLG model or the basic CA model. Numerical examples show that the model proposed can capture the basic features of pedestrian evacuation, such as clogging and arching phenomena.

  2. A FORM ANALYSIS OF JAPANESE PEDESTRIAN DECKS AND EUROPEAN PLAZAS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    ANDO Naomi

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available This study compares Japanese pedestrian decks and European plazas as public pedestrian spaces. The characteristics of both types of spaces will be clarified through a schematic analysis. The connections of these spaces with their surroundings will also be analyzed. Further, the spatial image of these spaces are discussed. Pedestrian spaces in Romania will be discussed as well.

  3. Validation of virtual reality as a tool to understand and prevent child pedestrian injury.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwebel, David C; Gaines, Joanna; Severson, Joan

    2008-07-01

    In recent years, virtual reality has emerged as an innovative tool for health-related education and training. Among the many benefits of virtual reality is the opportunity for novice users to engage unsupervised in a safe environment when the real environment might be dangerous. Virtual environments are only useful for health-related research, however, if behavior in the virtual world validly matches behavior in the real world. This study was designed to test the validity of an immersive, interactive virtual pedestrian environment. A sample of 102 children and 74 adults was recruited to complete simulated road-crossings in both the virtual environment and the identical real environment. In both the child and adult samples, construct validity was demonstrated via significant correlations between behavior in the virtual and real worlds. Results also indicate construct validity through developmental differences in behavior; convergent validity by showing correlations between parent-reported child temperament and behavior in the virtual world; internal reliability of various measures of pedestrian safety in the virtual world; and face validity, as measured by users' self-reported perception of realism in the virtual world. We discuss issues of generalizability to other virtual environments, and the implications for application of virtual reality to understanding and preventing pediatric pedestrian injuries.

  4. Connected vehicle application : safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-01-01

    Connected vehicle safety applications are designed to increase situational awareness : and reduce or eliminate crashes through vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) data transmissions. Applications...

  5. Extension of car-to-X-communication by radiolocation techniques; Erweiterung der Fahrzeug-zu-Fahrzeug-Kommunikation mit Funkortungstechniken

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schwarz, Daniel [BMW Group, Muenchen (Germany). Bereich Konzepte ' ' Aktive und Integrale Sicherheit' '

    2012-10-15

    A transponder, carried by vulnerable road users, e.g. pedestrians or bicyclists, and integrated in a smartphone, enables localisation from the vehicle side. A connected driver assistant system can detect movements, predict a possible collision and take preventive actions like informing the driver, braking or steering. In the research project Ko-TAG (Cooperative Transponder) within the research initiative Ko-FAS (Cooperative Vehicle Safety) new sensor technologies are developed. BMW, as Ko-TAG project manager, explains the cooperative sensor technology and the automatic control technique of the preventive safety system. (orig.)

  6. The contribution of licensing measures to the safety of novice drivers in Germany. On behalf of the Bundesanstalt für Strassenwesen BASt.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Twisk, D.A.M.

    1998-01-01

    The Bundesanstalt fuer Strassenwesen (BASt) commissioned the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research to review the literature on research into the effectiveness of: (1) post-qualification restrictive measures for novice drivers; and (2) of accompanied driving both as part of the driver training and

  7. A Model for Assessing Pedestrian Corridors. Application to Vitoria-Gasteiz City (Spain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Javier Delso

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available From a mobility perspective, walking is considered to be the most sustainable transport mode. One of the consequences of motor-oriented urban configuration on pedestrian mobility is urban fragmentation, which affects sustainability in cities. In this paper, we use a natural-based approach to landscape fragmentation and connectivity (inherited from landscape ecology for pedestrian mobility planning. Our aim is to design a useful methodology to identify priority pedestrian corridors, and to assess the effects of implementing barrier-free pedestrian corridors in the city. For this purpose, we developed a method that integrates Geographical Information Systems (GIS network analysis with kernel density methods, which are commonly used for designating habitat corridors. It was applied to Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain. Pedestrian mobility was assessed by comparison of travel times between different scenarios. Results show that the implementation of pedestrian corridors reduces travel time by approximately 6%. Thus, an intervention in a small percentage of the city’s street network could considerably reduce pedestrian travel times. The proposed methodology is a useful tool for urban and transport planners to improve pedestrian mobility and manage motorised traffic.

  8. The importance of rotational kinematics in pedestrian head to windshield impacts

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Mordaka, J.; Kleiven, S.; Schijndel-de Nooij, M. van; Lange, R. de; Casanova, L.J.G.; Carter, E.L.; Holst, H. von

    2007-01-01

    The objective of the present study was to analyze the effect of angular kinematics on head injury in pedestrian head-to-windshield impacts. Three cases of pedestrian head impacts were simulated with FE head and windshield models. The initial impact conditions were obtained from pedestrian accident

  9. Cellular automaton simulation of pedestrian counter flow with different walk velocities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Weng, W. G.; Chen, T.; Yuan, H. Y.; Fan, W. C.

    2006-01-01

    This paper presents a cellular automaton model without step back for pedestrian dynamics considering the human behaviors which can make judgments in some complex situations. This model can simulate pedestrian movement with different walk velocities through update at different time-step intervals. Two kinds of boundary conditions including periodic and open boundary for pedestrian counter flow are considered, and their dynamical characteristics are discussed. Simulation results show that for periodic boundary condition there are three phases of pedestrian patterns, i.e., freely moving phase, lane formation phase, and perfectly stopped phase at some certain total density ranges. In the stage of lane formation, the phenomenon that pedestrians exceed those with lower walk velocity through a narrow walkway can be found. For open boundary condition, at some certain entrance densities, there are two steady states of pedestrian patterns; but the first is metastable. Spontaneous fluctuations can break the first steady state, i.e., freely moving phase, and run into the second steady state, i.e., perfectly stopped phase

  10. Ubiquitous Integrity via Network Integration and Parallelism—Sustaining Pedestrian/Bike Urbanism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Li-Yen Hsu

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, due to the concern regarding environmental issues, establishing pedestrian/bike friendly urbanism is widely encouraged. To promote safety-assured, mobile communication environments, efficient, reliable maintenance, and information integrity need to be designed, especially in highly possibly interfered places. For busy traffic areas, regular degree-3 dedicated short range communication (DSRC networks are safety and information featured with availability, reliability, and maintainability in paths of multi-lanes. For sparsely populated areas, probes of wireless sensors are rational, especially if sensor nodes can be organized to enhance security, reliability, and flexibility. Applying alternative network topologies, such as spider-webs, generalized honeycomb tori, and cube-connected cycles, for comparing and analyzing is proposed in DSRC and cellular communications to enhance integrity in communications.

  11. On the road again after traumatic brain injury: driver safety and behaviour following on-road assessment and rehabilitation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ross, Pamela; Ponsford, Jennie L; Di Stefano, Marilyn; Charlton, Judith; Spitz, Gershon

    2016-01-01

    To examine pre- and post-injury self-reported driver behaviour and safety in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who returned to driving after occupational therapy driver assessment and on-road rehabilitation. A self-report questionnaire, administered at an average of 4.5 years after completing an on-road driver assessment, documenting pre- and post-injury crash rates, near-crashes, frequency of driving, distances driven, driving conditions avoided and navigation skills, was completed by 106 participants, who had either passed the initial driver assessment (pass group n = 74), or required driver rehabilitation, prior to subsequent assessments (rehabilitation group n = 32). No significant difference was found between pre- and post-injury crash rates. Compared to pre-injury, 36.8% of drivers reported limiting driving time, 40.6% drove more slowly, 41.5% reported greater difficulty with navigating and 20.0% reported more near-crashes. The rehabilitation group (with greater injury severity) was significantly more likely to drive less frequently, shorter distances, avoid: driving with passengers, busy traffic, night and freeway driving than the pass group. Many drivers with moderate/severe TBI who completed a driver assessment and rehabilitation program at least 3 months post-injury, reported modifying their driving behaviour, and did not report more crashes compared to pre-injury. On-road driver training and training in navigation may be important interventions in driver rehabilitation programs. Driver assessment and on-road retraining are important aspects of rehabilitation following traumatic brain injury. Many drivers with moderate/severe TBI, reported modifying their driving behaviour to compensate for ongoing impairment and continued to drive safely in the longer term. Navigational difficulties were commonly experienced following TBI, suggesting that training in navigation may be an important aspect of driver rehabilitation.

  12. Pedestrian Detection and Tracking from Low-Resolution Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Thermal Imagery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yalong Ma

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Driven by the prominent thermal signature of humans and following the growing availability of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, more and more research efforts have been focusing on the detection and tracking of pedestrians using thermal infrared images recorded from UAVs. However, pedestrian detection and tracking from the thermal images obtained from UAVs pose many challenges due to the low-resolution of imagery, platform motion, image instability and the relatively small size of the objects. This research tackles these challenges by proposing a pedestrian detection and tracking system. A two-stage blob-based approach is first developed for pedestrian detection. This approach first extracts pedestrian blobs using the regional gradient feature and geometric constraints filtering and then classifies the detected blobs by using a linear Support Vector Machine (SVM with a hybrid descriptor, which sophisticatedly combines Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT features in order to achieve accurate detection. This research further proposes an approach for pedestrian tracking. This approach employs the feature tracker with the update of detected pedestrian location to track pedestrian objects from the registered videos and extracts the motion trajectory data. The proposed detection and tracking approaches have been evaluated by multiple different datasets, and the results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. This research is expected to significantly benefit many transportation applications, such as the multimodal traffic performance measure, pedestrian behavior study and pedestrian-vehicle crash analysis. Future work will focus on using fused thermal and visual images to further improve the detection efficiency and effectiveness.

  13. Pedestrian crowd dynamics in merging sections: Revisiting the ;faster-is-slower; phenomenon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shahhoseini, Zahra; Sarvi, Majid; Saberi, Meead

    2018-02-01

    The study of the discharge of active or self-driven matter in narrow passages has become of the growing interest in a variety of fields. The question has particularly important practical applications for the safety of pedestrian human flows notably in emergency scenarios. It has been suggested predominantly through simulation in some theoretical studies as well as through few experimentations that under certain circumstances, an elevated vigour to escape may exacerbate the outflow and cause further delay although the experimental evidence is rather mixed. The dimensions of this complex phenomenon known as the "faster-is slower" effect are of crucial importance to be understood owing to its potential practical implications for the emergency management. The contextual requirements of observing this phenomenon are yet to be identified. It is not clear whether a "do not speed up" policy is universally beneficial and advisable in an evacuation scenario. Here for the first time we experimentally examine this phenomenon in relation to the pedestrian flows at merging sections as a common geometric feature of crowd egress. Various merging angles and three different speed regimes were examined in high-density laboratory experiments. The measurements of flow interruptions and egress efficiency all indicated that the pedestrians were discharged faster when moving at elevated speed levels. We also observed clear dependencies between the discharge rate and the physical layout of the merging with certain designs clearly outperforming others. But regardless of the design, we observed faster throughput and greater avalanche sizes when we instructed pedestrians to run. Our results give the suggestion that observation of the faster-is-slower effect may necessitate certain critical conditions including passages being overly narrow relative to the size of participles (pedestrians) to create long-lasting blockages. The faster-is-slower assumption may not be universal and there may be

  14. Proposing a Revised Pedestrian Walkway Level of Service Based on Characteristics of Pedestrian Interactive Behaviours in China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaonian Shan

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this study is to analyse characteristics of Pedestrian Interactive Behaviours (PIBs in order to propose a revised pedestrian walkway Level of Service (LOS in China. Field data on overtaking and evasive behaviours were collected at a metro station walkway in Shanghai, China to calculate macro and micro indicators. Occurrence intensities of these two PIBs initially increased with moderate density and later decreased with high density that reduced available space. PIBs were also analysed in terms of sideways behaviours to account for the varying difficulties of PIBs at different densities. It was found that available space for PIBs was the main factor contributing to the intensity features. Moreover, the different space demands of the two PIBs resulted in different features between them. Finally, a revised pedestrian walkway LOS was proposed based on the macro and micro characteristics of PIBs in China.

  15. 75 FR 47886 - Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Vision

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-09

    ... greater level of safety is likely to be achieved by permitting each of these drivers to drive in... performance is especially important in evaluating future safety, according to several research studies... the drivers was involved in a crash. All the applicants achieved a record of safety while driving with...

  16. Impact of social and technological distraction on pedestrian crossing behaviour: an observational study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Leah L; Rivara, Frederick P; Ayyagari, Rajiv C; Ebel, Beth E

    2013-08-01

    The objective of the present work was to study the impact of technological and social distraction on cautionary behaviours and crossing times in pedestrians. Pedestrians were observed at 20 high-risk intersections during 1 of 3 randomly assigned time windows in 2012. Observers recorded demographic and behavioural information, including use of a mobile device (talking on the phone, text messaging, or listening to music). We examined the association between distraction and crossing behaviours, adjusting for age and gender. All multivariate analyses were conducted with random effect logistic regression (binary outcomes) and random effect linear regression (continuous outcomes), accounting for clustering by site. Observers recorded crossing behaviours for 1102 pedestrians. Nearly one-third (29.8%) of all pedestrians performed a distracting activity while crossing. Distractions included listening to music (11.2%), text messaging (7.3%) and using a handheld phone (6.2%). Text messaging, mobile phone use and talking with a companion increased crossing time. Texting pedestrians took 1.87 additional seconds (18.0%) to cross the average intersection (3.4 lanes), compared to undistracted pedestrians. Texting pedestrians were 3.9 times more likely than undistracted pedestrians to display at least 1 unsafe crossing behaviour (disobeying the lights, crossing mid-intersection, or failing to look both ways). Pedestrians listening to music walked more than half a second (0.54) faster across the average intersection than undistracted pedestrians. Distracting activity is common among pedestrians, even while crossing intersections. Technological and social distractions increase crossing times, with text messaging associated with the highest risk. Our findings suggest the need for intervention studies to reduce risk of pedestrian injury.

  17. Influence of approaching tram on behaviour of pedestrians in signalised crosswalks in Poland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kruszyna, Maciej; Rychlewski, Jeremi

    2013-06-01

    Research done in two Polish cities has uncovered an influence of an approaching tram on pedestrian behaviour. The measurements were done by counting pedestrians waiting for a green signal, crossing on red signal safely, or crossing on red signal taking a risk of being hit by a car, differentiating between pedestrians attempting to board a public transport vehicle and other pedestrians. It was expected, that pedestrian behaviour might be influenced by traffic control predictability, therefore two cities were chosen for the task: Wrocław with fixed time traffic control and Poznań with a majority of traffic responsive traffic signals. Data from the measurements was compared in order to find behaviour patterns - the comparison led to a conclusion, that an attempt to get on board of an incoming public transport vehicle can be a major cause for pedestrians to violate a red signal, including an increase of unsafe behaviour. These pedestrians may provoke other pedestrians to cross on a red signal. On the other hand if traffic control guarantees boarding the public transport vehicle, passengers-to-be may be even more obedient than other pedestrians. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Gender differences and demographic influences in perceived concern for driver safety and support for impaired driving countermeasures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Butters, Jennifer; Mann, Robert E; Wickens, Christine M; Boase, Paul

    2012-12-01

    Driving safety, impaired driving, and legislation to address these concerns remain important issues. It is imperative countermeasures be targeted toward the most appropriate groups. This paper explores the potential relationship between gender and driving attitudes toward safety issues and impaired-driving countermeasures. The data are from the 2007 Impaired Driving Survey commissioned by Transport Canada and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Canada. The survey is a, stratified by region, telephone survey of 1,514 Canadian drivers 18years of age and older with a valid driver's license who had driven within the past 30days. The findings illustrate a consistent impact of gender on these issues. Other variables were also identified as relevant factors although less consistently. Current findings suggest that strategies for building support for interventions, or for changing risk perception/concern for risky driving behaviors should be tailored by gender to maximize the potential for behavior change. This information may assist program and policy developers through the identification of more or less receptive target groups. Future research directions are also presented. Copyright © 2012 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Spatiotemporal approaches to analyzing pedestrian fatalities: the case of Cali, Colombia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, Lani; Serre, Marc L; Lippmann, Steven J; Rodríguez, Daniel A; Bangdiwala, Shrikant I; Gutiérrez, María Isabel; Escobar, Guido; Villaveces, Andrés

    2015-01-01

    Injuries among pedestrians are a major public health concern in Colombian cities such as Cali. This is one of the first studies in Latin America to apply Bayesian maximum entropy (BME) methods to visualize and produce fine-scale, highly accurate estimates of citywide pedestrian fatalities. The purpose of this study is to determine the BME method that best estimates pedestrian mortality rates and reduces statistical noise. We further utilized BME methods to identify and differentiate spatial patterns and persistent versus transient pedestrian mortality hotspots. In this multiyear study, geocoded pedestrian mortality data from the Cali Injury Surveillance System (2008 to 2010) and census data were utilized to accurately visualize and estimate pedestrian fatalities. We investigated the effects of temporal and spatial scales, addressing issues arising from the rarity of pedestrian fatality events using 3 BME methods (simple kriging, Poisson kriging, and uniform model Bayesian maximum entropy). To reduce statistical noise while retaining a fine spatial and temporal scale, data were aggregated over 9-month incidence periods and censal sectors. Based on a cross-validation of BME methods, Poisson kriging was selected as the best BME method. Finally, the spatiotemporal and urban built environment characteristics of Cali pedestrian mortality hotspots were linked to intervention measures provided in Mead et al.'s (2014) pedestrian mortality review. The BME space-time analysis in Cali resulted in maps displaying hotspots of high pedestrian fatalities extending over small areas with radii of 0.25 to 1.1 km and temporal durations of 1 month to 3 years. Mapping the spatiotemporal distribution of pedestrian mortality rates identified high-priority areas for prevention strategies. The BME results allow us to identify possible intervention strategies according to the persistence and built environment of the hotspot; for example, through enforcement or long-term environmental

  20. Effects of Switching Behavior for the Attraction on Pedestrian Dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwak, Jaeyoung; Jo, Hang-Hyun; Luttinen, Tapio; Kosonen, Iisakki

    2015-01-01

    Walking is a fundamental activity of our daily life not only for moving to other places but also for interacting with surrounding environment. While walking on the streets, pedestrians can be aware of attractions like shopping windows. They can be influenced by the attractions and some of them might shift their attention towards the attractions, namely switching behavior. As a first step to incorporate the switching behavior, this study investigates collective effects of switching behavior for an attraction by developing a behavioral model. Numerical simulations exhibit different patterns of pedestrian behavior depending on the strength of the social influence and the average length of stay. When the social influence is strong along with a long length of stay, a saturated phase can be defined at which all the pedestrians have visited the attraction. If the social influence is not strong enough, an unsaturated phase appears where one can observe that some pedestrians head for the attraction while others walk in their desired direction. These collective patterns of pedestrian behavior are summarized in a phase diagram by comparing the number of pedestrians who visited the attraction to the number of passersby near the attraction. Measuring the marginal benefits with respect to the strength of the social influence and the average length of stay enables us to identify under what conditions enhancing these variables would be more effective. The findings from this study can be understood in the context of the pedestrian facility management, for instance, for retail stores.

  1. Literature review on vehicle travel speeds and pedestrian injuries

    Science.gov (United States)

    1999-10-01

    The relationship between vehicle travel speeds and resulting pedestrian injury was reviewed in the literature and in existing data sets. Results indicated that higher vehicle speeds are strongly associated with both a greater likelihood of pedestrian...

  2. Pedestrian and Evacuation Dynamics 2005

    CERN Document Server

    Gattermann, Peter; Knoflacher, Hermann; Schreckenberg, Michael

    2007-01-01

    Due to an increasing number of reported catastrophes all over the world, the safety especially of pedestrians today, is a dramatically growing field of interest, both for practitioners as well as scientists from various disciplines. The questions arising mainly address the dynamics of evacuating people and possible optimisations of the process by changing the architecture and /or the procedure. This concerns not only the case of ships, stadiums or buildings, all with restricted geometries, but also the evacuation of complete geographical regions due to natural disasters. Furthermore, also ‘simple’ crowd motion in ‘relaxed’ situations poses new questions with respect to higher comfort and efficiency since the number of involved persons at large events is as high as never before. In addition, as a new research topic in this field, collective animal behaviour is attracting increasing attention. All this was in the scope of the conference held in Vienna, September 28–30, 2005, the third one in a series ...

  3. The ability of flexible car bonnets to mitigate the consequences of frontal impact with pedestrians

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanisławek, Sebastian; Niezgoda, Tadeusz

    2018-01-01

    The paper presents the results of numerical research on a vehicle representing a Toyota Yaris passenger sedan hitting a pedestrian. A flexible car body is suggested as an interesting way to increase safety. The authors present a simple low-cost bonnet buffer concept that may mitigate the effects of frontal impact. Computer simulation was the method chosen to solve the problem efficiently. The Finite Element Method (FEM) implemented in the LS-DYNA commercial code was used. The testing procedure was based on the Euro NCAP protocol. A flexible bonnet buffer shows its usefulness in preventing casualties in typical accidents. In the best scenario, the HIC15 parameter is only 380 when such a buffer is installed. In comparison, an accident involving a car without any protection produces an HIC15 of 970, which is very dangerous for pedestrians.

  4. A least-effort principle based model for heterogeneous pedestrian flow considering overtaking behavior

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Chi; Ye, Rui; Lian, Liping; Song, Weiguo; Zhang, Jun; Lo, Siuming

    2018-05-01

    In the context of global aging, how to design traffic facilities for a population with a different age composition is of high importance. For this purpose, we propose a model based on the least effort principle to simulate heterogeneous pedestrian flow. In the model, the pedestrian is represented by a three-disc shaped agent. We add a new parameter to realize pedestrians' preference to avoid changing their direction of movement too quickly. The model is validated with numerous experimental data on unidirectional pedestrian flow. In addition, we investigate the influence of corridor width and velocity distribution of crowds on unidirectional heterogeneous pedestrian flow. The simulation results reflect that widening corridors could increase the specific flow for the crowd composed of two kinds of pedestrians with significantly different free velocities. Moreover, compared with a unified crowd, the crowd composed of pedestrians with great mobility differences requires a wider corridor to attain the same traffic efficiency. This study could be beneficial in providing a better understanding of heterogeneous pedestrian flow, and quantified outcomes could be applied in traffic facility design.

  5. Considering built environment and spatial correlation in modelling pedestrian injury severity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Prato, Carlo G.; Kaplan, Sigal; Patrier, Alexandre

    traffic calming measures, illumination solutions, road maintenance programs and speed limit reductions. Moreover, this study emphasises the role of the built environment, as shopping areas, residential areas, and walking traffic density are positively related to a reduction in pedestrian injury severity......This study looks at mitigating and aggravating factors that are associated with the injury severity of pedestrians when they have crashes with another road user and overcomes existing limitations in the literature by posing attention on the built environment and considering spatial correlation...... of pedestrians to sustain a severe or fatal injury conditional on the occurrence of a crash with another road user. This study confirms previous findings about older pedestrians and intoxicated pedestrians being the most vulnerable road users, and crashes with heavy vehicles and in roads with higher speed limits...

  6. Considering built environment and spatial correlation in modelling pedestrian injury severity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Prato, Carlo G.; Kaplan, Sigal; Patrier, Alexandre

    2018-01-01

    traffic calming measures, illumination solutions, road maintenance programs and speed limit reductions. Moreover, this study emphasises the role of the built environment, as shopping areas, residential areas, and walking traffic density are positively related to a reduction in pedestrian injury severity......This study looks at mitigating and aggravating factors that are associated with the injury severity of pedestrians when they have crashes with another road user and overcomes existing limitations in the literature by posing attention on the built environment and considering spatial correlation...... of pedestrians to sustain a severe or fatal injury conditional on the occurrence of a crash with another road user. This study confirms previous findings about older pedestrians and intoxicated pedestrians being the most vulnerable road users, and crashes with heavy vehicles and in roads with higher speed limits...

  7. Modeling detour behavior of pedestrian dynamics under different conditions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qu, Yunchao; Xiao, Yao; Wu, Jianjun; Tang, Tao; Gao, Ziyou

    2018-02-01

    Pedestrian simulation approach has been widely used to reveal the human behavior and evaluate the performance of crowd evacuation. In the existing pedestrian simulation models, the social force model is capable of predicting many collective phenomena. Detour behavior occurs in many cases, and the important behavior is a dominate factor of the crowd evacuation efficiency. However, limited attention has been attracted for analyzing and modeling the characteristics of detour behavior. In this paper, a modified social force model integrated by Voronoi diagram is proposed to calculate the detour direction and preferred velocity. Besides, with the consideration of locations and velocities of neighbor pedestrians, a Logit-based choice model is built to describe the detour direction choice. The proposed model is applied to analyze pedestrian dynamics in a corridor scenario with either unidirectional or bidirectional flow, and a building scenario in real-world. Simulation results show that the modified social force model including detour behavior could reduce the frequency of collision and deadlock, increase the average speed of the crowd, and predict more practical crowd dynamics with detour behavior. This model can also be potentially applied to understand the pedestrian dynamics and design emergent management strategies for crowd evacuations.

  8. The role of fluctuations and interactions in pedestrian dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corbetta, Alessandro; Meeusen, Jasper; Benzi, Roberto; Lee, Chung-Min; Toschi, Federico

    Understanding quantitatively the statistical behaviour of pedestrians walking in crowds is a major scientific challenge of paramount societal relevance. Walking humans exhibit a rich (stochastic) dynamics whose small and large deviations are driven, among others, by own will as well as by environmental conditions. Via 24/7 automatic pedestrian tracking from multiple overhead Microsoft Kinect depth sensors, we collected large ensembles of pedestrian trajectories (in the order of tens of millions) in different real-life scenarios. These scenarios include both narrow corridors and large urban hallways, enabling us to cover and compare a wide spectrum of typical pedestrian dynamics. We investigate the pedestrian motion measuring the PDFs, e.g. those of position, velocity and acceleration, and at unprecedentedly high statistical resolution. We consider the dependence of PDFs on flow conditions, focusing on diluted dynamics and pair-wise interactions (''collisions'') for mutual avoidance. By means of Langevin-like models we provide models for the measured data, inclusive typical fluctuations and rare events. This work is part of the JSTP research programme ``Vision driven visitor behaviour analysis and crowd management'' with Project Number 341-10-001, which is financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

  9. Pedestrian Walking Behavior Revealed through a Random Walk Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hui Xiong

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper applies method of continuous-time random walks for pedestrian flow simulation. In the model, pedestrians can walk forward or backward and turn left or right if there is no block. Velocities of pedestrian flow moving forward or diffusing are dominated by coefficients. The waiting time preceding each jump is assumed to follow an exponential distribution. To solve the model, a second-order two-dimensional partial differential equation, a high-order compact scheme with the alternating direction implicit method, is employed. In the numerical experiments, the walking domain of the first one is two-dimensional with two entrances and one exit, and that of the second one is two-dimensional with one entrance and one exit. The flows in both scenarios are one way. Numerical results show that the model can be used for pedestrian flow simulation.

  10. Greenways Pedestrian & Cyclist Counters

    Data.gov (United States)

    Town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina — Pedestrian and cyclist sensor data time stamped from sensors on the Bolin Creek Trail and Meadowmont Trail in Chapel Hill. Each sensor has four value points that...

  11. The changing epidemiology of open fractures in vehicle occupants, pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winkler, Dennis; Goudie, Stuart T; Court-Brown, Charles M

    2018-02-01

    To investigate the changing epidemiology of open fractures in vehicle occupants, pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists. Data on all non-spinal open fractures admitted to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh after a road traffic accident between 1988 and 2010 were collected and analysed to provide information about the changing epidemiology in different patient groups. Demographic information was collected on all patients with the severity of injury being analysed with the Injury Severity Score (ISS), Musculoskeletal Index (MSI) and the number of open fractures. The severity of the open fractures was analysed using the Gustilo classification. The 23-year study period was divided into four shorter periods and the results were compared. There were 696 patients treated in 23 years. Analysis showed that the incidence of RTA open fractures initially fell in both males and females and continued to fall in females during the 23 years. In males it levelled off about 2000. The age of the female patients also fell during the study period but it did not change in males. The only patient group to show an increased incidence of open fractures were cyclists. In vehicle occupants the incidence fell throughout the study period but it levelled off in pedestrians and motorcyclists. There was no difference in the severity of injury in any group during the study period. The most severe open fractures were those of the distal femur and femoral diaphysis although open tibial diaphyseal fractures were the most common fracture in all patient groups. Improved car design and road safety legislation has resulted in a reduction in the incidence of open fractures in vehicle occupants, pedestrians and motorcyclists. The most obvious group to have benefitted from this are older female pedestrians. The only group to show an increase in age during the study period were male motorcyclists. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Pedestrians and cyclists interaction in urban settings of Pardubice city

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Josef Bulíček

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Presented paper is focused on questions of cyclist transport in urban settings, specifically in the city of Pardubice. Emphasis is put on analysis of potentially conflict places, especially in interaction with pedestrians. Direct terrain observation and consequent evaluation of conflict potential are used as method for data collecting. When cycling routes are designed, the requirements of the cyclists should be taken into account in order to ensure that the routes are accepted. In order to make planning user oriented one has to know which criteria are important for cyclists` route choice. Until now not many studies were conducted on this topic in Czech Republic. Theoretical background used states 5 basic requirements for cycle routes. These are: 1. Coherence (the cycling infrastructure forms a coherent unit and links with all departure points and destinations of cyclist, 2. Directness (the cycling infrastructure continually offers the cyclists as direct a route as possible, so detours are kept to a minimum, 3. attractiveness (the cycling infrastructure is designed and fitted to the surroundings in such a way that cycling is attractive, 4. safety (the cycling infrastructure guarantees the road safety of cyclists and other road users, 5. comfort (the cycling infrastructure enables a quick and comfortable flow of bicycle traffic.. Planners need a clear understanding of what influences bicycling behavior to develop effective strategies to increase use of those modes. Transportation practitioners have largely focused on infrastructure and the built environment, although researchers have found that attitudes are also very important. Theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985 - intentions to perform behaviors of different kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of behavioral control, account for considerable variance in

  13. Pedestrian Counting with Occlusion Handling Using Stereo Thermal Cameras

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kristoffersen, Miklas Strøm; Dueholm, Jacob Velling; Gade, Rikke

    2016-01-01

    and the complexity of scenes with many people occluding one another. To address these challenges, this paper introduces the use of a stereo thermal camera setup for pedestrian counting. We investigate the reconstruction of 3D points in a pedestrian street with two thermal cameras and propose an algorithm......The number of pedestrians walking the streets or gathered in public spaces is a valuable piece of information for shop owners, city governments, event organizers and many others. However, automatic counting that takes place day and night is challenging due to changing lighting conditions...

  14. Exploring physical attributes of walkability from perspective of blind pedestrians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bona Frazila Russ

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Access has become a crucial issue for the persons with disabilities (PWDs, in which the inconvenient transportation facilities is contributed to the dependent living issue of PWD, specifically the visual impaired person. As a primary aspect of transportation, the walking facilities further needs to be carefully considered for facilitating their moving activities. Recently, the effect of built environment on walking behavior has obtained significant attention, which is generally constructed within the framework of walkability concept. The walkability has been extensively used for evaluating the physical attributes of pedestrian facilities by comparing it to the walker perception. Hence, the evaluation result can directly answer the needs of pedestrian. Despite of their recent research achievements, the walkability concept is mostly unsuccessful to take into account the blind walker characteristics. This paper then explore physical attributes of walkability environment in order to provide the friendly pedestrian facilities for the blind pedestrian, which is rarely explored. The research is established based on the blind walker perspectives within the micro-level analysis that incorporates a smaller unit of measurement (i.e., the street-level physical attributes. The physical attributes result are thus potentially to be utilized for analyzing the required pedestrian facilities for the blind pedestrians.

  15. Mandatory Driver Training and Road Safety: The Quebec Experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Potvin, Louise; And Others

    1988-01-01

    1983 legislation making driver training courses mandatory for any person in Quebec seeking a first driver's license had no effect on the risk of accident or the mortality/morbidity rate for newly licensed drivers over 18. However, since 1983 more women under 18 are becoming licensed, and their risks may be increased. (Author/BJV)

  16. Considering built environment and spatial correlation in modeling pedestrian injury severity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prato, Carlo G; Kaplan, Sigal; Patrier, Alexandre; Rasmussen, Thomas K

    2018-01-02

    This study looks at mitigating and aggravating factors that are associated with the injury severity of pedestrians when they have crashes with another road user and overcomes existing limitations in the literature by focusing attention on the built environment and considering spatial correlation across crashes. Reports for 6,539 pedestrian crashes occurred in Denmark between 2006 and 2015 were merged with geographic information system resources containing detailed information about the built environment and exposure at the crash locations. A linearized spatial logit model estimated the probability of pedestrians sustaining a severe or fatal injury conditional on the occurrence of a crash with another road user. This study confirms previous findings about older pedestrians and intoxicated pedestrians being the most vulnerable road users and crashes with heavy vehicles and in roads with higher speed limits being related to the most severe outcomes. This study provides novel perspectives by showing positive spatial correlations of crashes with the same severity outcomes and emphasizing the role of the built environment in the proximity of the crash. This study emphasizes the need for thinking about traffic calming measures, illumination solutions, road maintenance programs, and speed limit reductions. Moreover, this study emphasizes the role of the built environment, because shopping areas, residential areas, and walking traffic density are positively related to a reduction in pedestrian injury severity. Often, these areas have in common a larger pedestrian mass that is more likely to make other road users more aware and attentive, whereas the same does not seem to apply to areas with lower pedestrian density.

  17. Effects of Switching Behavior for the Attraction on Pedestrian Dynamics.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaeyoung Kwak

    Full Text Available Walking is a fundamental activity of our daily life not only for moving to other places but also for interacting with surrounding environment. While walking on the streets, pedestrians can be aware of attractions like shopping windows. They can be influenced by the attractions and some of them might shift their attention towards the attractions, namely switching behavior. As a first step to incorporate the switching behavior, this study investigates collective effects of switching behavior for an attraction by developing a behavioral model. Numerical simulations exhibit different patterns of pedestrian behavior depending on the strength of the social influence and the average length of stay. When the social influence is strong along with a long length of stay, a saturated phase can be defined at which all the pedestrians have visited the attraction. If the social influence is not strong enough, an unsaturated phase appears where one can observe that some pedestrians head for the attraction while others walk in their desired direction. These collective patterns of pedestrian behavior are summarized in a phase diagram by comparing the number of pedestrians who visited the attraction to the number of passersby near the attraction. Measuring the marginal benefits with respect to the strength of the social influence and the average length of stay enables us to identify under what conditions enhancing these variables would be more effective. The findings from this study can be understood in the context of the pedestrian facility management, for instance, for retail stores.

  18. Dynamic analysis of pedestrian crossing behaviors on traffic flow at unsignalized mid-block crosswalks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Gang; He, Jing; Luo, Zhiyong; Yang, Wunian; Zhang, Xiping

    2015-05-01

    It is important to study the effects of pedestrian crossing behaviors on traffic flow for solving the urban traffic jam problem. Based on the Nagel-Schreckenberg (NaSch) traffic cellular automata (TCA) model, a new one-dimensional TCA model is proposed considering the uncertainty conflict behaviors between pedestrians and vehicles at unsignalized mid-block crosswalks and defining the parallel updating rules of motion states of pedestrians and vehicles. The traffic flow is simulated for different vehicle densities and behavior trigger probabilities. The fundamental diagrams show that no matter what the values of vehicle braking probability, pedestrian acceleration crossing probability, pedestrian backing probability and pedestrian generation probability, the system flow shows the "increasing-saturating-decreasing" trend with the increase of vehicle density; when the vehicle braking probability is lower, it is easy to cause an emergency brake of vehicle and result in great fluctuation of saturated flow; the saturated flow decreases slightly with the increase of the pedestrian acceleration crossing probability; when the pedestrian backing probability lies between 0.4 and 0.6, the saturated flow is unstable, which shows the hesitant behavior of pedestrians when making the decision of backing; the maximum flow is sensitive to the pedestrian generation probability and rapidly decreases with increasing the pedestrian generation probability, the maximum flow is approximately equal to zero when the probability is more than 0.5. The simulations prove that the influence of frequent crossing behavior upon vehicle flow is immense; the vehicle flow decreases and gets into serious congestion state rapidly with the increase of the pedestrian generation probability.

  19. Drinking driver and traffic safety project. Volume 1

    Science.gov (United States)

    1972-05-01

    This is the final report of a four-year study of drinking drivers. On the basis of analyses of over 4,000 cases (approximately 1400 of whom were driver's license applicants who had no convictions for drunk-driving, and the remainder had been convicte...

  20. Influence of the Built Environment on Pedestrian Route Choices of Adolescent Girls

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rodriguez, Daniel A.; Merlin, Louis; Prato, Carlo Giacomo

    2015-01-01

    We examined the influence of the built environment on pedestrian route selection among adolescent girls. Portable global positioning system units, accelerometers, and travel diaries were used to identify the origin, destination, and walking routes of girls in San Diego, California, and Minneapolis...... of route choice. Shorter distance had the strongest positive association with route choice, whereas the presence of a greenway or trail, higher safety, presence of sidewalks, and availability of destinations along a route were also consistently positively associated with route choice at both sites...

  1. Traffic instabilities in self-organized pedestrian crowds.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mehdi Moussaïd

    Full Text Available In human crowds as well as in many animal societies, local interactions among individuals often give rise to self-organized collective organizations that offer functional benefits to the group. For instance, flows of pedestrians moving in opposite directions spontaneously segregate into lanes of uniform walking directions. This phenomenon is often referred to as a smart collective pattern, as it increases the traffic efficiency with no need of external control. However, the functional benefits of this emergent organization have never been experimentally measured, and the underlying behavioral mechanisms are poorly understood. In this work, we have studied this phenomenon under controlled laboratory conditions. We found that the traffic segregation exhibits structural instabilities characterized by the alternation of organized and disorganized states, where the lifetime of well-organized clusters of pedestrians follow a stretched exponential relaxation process. Further analysis show that the inter-pedestrian variability of comfortable walking speeds is a key variable at the origin of the observed traffic perturbations. We show that the collective benefit of the emerging pattern is maximized when all pedestrians walk at the average speed of the group. In practice, however, local interactions between slow- and fast-walking pedestrians trigger global breakdowns of organization, which reduce the collective and the individual payoff provided by the traffic segregation. This work is a step ahead toward the understanding of traffic self-organization in crowds, which turns out to be modulated by complex behavioral mechanisms that do not always maximize the group's benefits. The quantitative understanding of crowd behaviors opens the way for designing bottom-up management strategies bound to promote the emergence of efficient collective behaviors in crowds.

  2. Guaranteed safety information for rising traffic safety at roads main junctions using infrastructure-aided driver-assistance systems; Sichere Information durch infrastrukturgestuetzte Fahrerassistenzsysteme zur Steigerung der Verkehrssicherheit an Strassenknotenpunkten

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wiltschko, T.

    2004-07-01

    Progress of development of driver assistance systems have more and more lead to systems assisting the driver on guidance level. These systems allow direct or indirect driving process contact thus being safety relevant vehicle systems, and their operation requires high safety and reliability standards. To realize the necessary driver assistance, complete collection and interpretation of traffic actions are required and a number of information and information sources has to be integrated, especially in case of traffic situations at junctions in urban areas. The requirements, however, cannot only be reduced to technical reliability of the system and system components but have also to be extended to the information in- and output thus guaranteeing safe operation. This information has to reach the required quality thus avoiding any hazards during the complete time of information use. It is evident that none of the existing models and methods allow a uniform description of information quality of driver assistance systems. The thesis shows a quality concept for description and evaluation of information quality within information processing systems. The quality concept consists of a quality model and an analysing procedure. The quality model is the basis of the quality concept. All types of information are described by a fixed set of quality characteristic, and suitable parameters are used for concretion and quantification. (orig.)

  3. Pedestrian-induced lateral forces on footbridges

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ingolfsson, Einar Thor; Georgakis, Christos T.; Jönsson, Jeppe

    2012-01-01

    of the underlying pavement. An extensive experimental analysis has been carried out to determine the lateral forces generated by pedestrians when walking on a laterally moving treadmill. Two different conditions are investigated; initially the treadmill is fixed and then it is laterally driven in a sinusoidal...... motion at varying combinations of frequencies (0.33-1.07 Hz) and amplitudes (4.5-48 mm). The component of the pedestrian-induced force which is caused by the laterally moving surface is herewith quantified through equivalent velocity and acceleration proportional coefficients. It is shown that large...

  4. Pedestrian-induced lateral forces on footbridges

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ingólfsson, Einar Thór; Georgakis, Christos T.; Jönsson, Jeppe

    2011-01-01

    of the underlying pavement. An extensive experimental analysis has been carried out to determine the lateral forces generated by pedestrians when walking on a laterally moving treadmill. Two different conditions are investigated; initially the treadmill is fixed and then it is laterally driven in a sinusoidal...... motion at varying combinations of frequencies (0.33-1.07 Hz) and amplitudes (4.5-48 mm). The component of the pedestrian-induced force which is caused by the laterally moving surface is herewith quantified through equivalent velocity and acceleration proportional coefficients. It is shown that large...

  5. Fast Pedestrian Recognition Based on Multisensor Fusion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hongyu Hu

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available A fast pedestrian recognition algorithm based on multisensor fusion is presented in this paper. Firstly, potential pedestrian locations are estimated by laser radar scanning in the world coordinates, and then their corresponding candidate regions in the image are located by camera calibration and the perspective mapping model. For avoiding time consuming in the training and recognition process caused by large numbers of feature vector dimensions, region of interest-based integral histograms of oriented gradients (ROI-IHOG feature extraction method is proposed later. A support vector machine (SVM classifier is trained by a novel pedestrian sample dataset which adapt to the urban road environment for online recognition. Finally, we test the validity of the proposed approach with several video sequences from realistic urban road scenarios. Reliable and timewise performances are shown based on our multisensor fusing method.

  6. Contributions of ergonomics to the construction of bus drivers health and excellence in public transport and at work.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brunoro, Claudio; Sznelwar, Laerte Idal; Bolis, Ivan; Abrahão, Julia

    2012-01-01

    This article is the product of research that analyzed the work of bus drivers of a public transportation company that is considered a benchmark reference in its field of operations, in which it strives to achieve operating excellence. Within this context, the authors sought to understand how such a company has managed to maintain a policy that is capable of reconciling quality public transport while also providing working conditions compatible with the professional development, comfort and health of its workers. Ergonomic work analysis and activity analysis were the guiding elements used in this study. Initial analyses indicate that the activity of drivers includes serving a population and providing mobility for it, which depends on driving the vehicle itself and on relationships with colleagues, users, pedestrians, drivers and others.

  7. Small-size pedestrian detection in large scene based on fast R-CNN

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Shengke; Yang, Na; Duan, Lianghua; Liu, Lu; Dong, Junyu

    2018-04-01

    Pedestrian detection is a canonical sub-problem of object detection with high demand during recent years. Although recent deep learning object detectors such as Fast/Faster R-CNN have shown excellent performance for general object detection, they have limited success for small size pedestrian detection in large-view scene. We study that the insufficient resolution of feature maps lead to the unsatisfactory accuracy when handling small instances. In this paper, we investigate issues involving Fast R-CNN for pedestrian detection. Driven by the observations, we propose a very simple but effective baseline for pedestrian detection based on Fast R-CNN, employing the DPM detector to generate proposals for accuracy, and training a fast R-CNN style network to jointly optimize small size pedestrian detection with skip connection concatenating feature from different layers to solving coarseness of feature maps. And the accuracy is improved in our research for small size pedestrian detection in the real large scene.

  8. Features of microscopic pedestrian movement in a panic situation based on cellular automata model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibrahim, Najihah; Hassan, Fadratul Hafinaz

    2017-10-01

    Pedestrian movement is the one of the subset for the crowd management under simulation objective. During panic situation, pedestrian usually will create a microscopic movement that lead towards the self-organization. During self-organizing, the behavioral and physical factors had caused the mass effect on the pedestrian movement. The basic CA model will create a movement path for each pedestrian over a time step. However, due to the factors immerge, the CA model needs some enhancement that will establish a real simulation state. Hence, this concept paper will discuss on the enhanced features of CA model for microscopic pedestrian movement during panic situation for a better pedestrian simulation.

  9. Enlightenment of Qilou Street Space Intelligence to Pedestrian System Design in Commercial District

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chen Jing

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Aiming at those generally existing problems in urban commercial pedestrian districts, through the design methods of extracting separation of man from vehicle in traditional Qilou pedestrian street space, continuous pedestrian space with shelter, and the behavior paths with combination of commercial activities, this thesis sets about from the behaviors of pedestrians in walking state, and finds that the traditional Qilou pedestrian street space can satisfy pedestrians’ physiological and psychological demands in shopping better. At the same time, combining current urban commercial districts developing demands, and the successful experience from traditional Qilou, this thesis also proposes relevant improvement measures. The improvements in design means are expected to improve pedestrian environment for, and achieve the commercial values of these districts, as well as the win-win of environment improvement and commercial activity development.

  10. Qualitative comparison of north-american procedures for areawide pedestrian travel measurement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ryan Greene-Roesel

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available

    There is no standard system for estimating area-wide pedestrian volumes in the United States. As a result, pedestrian volumes cannot be routinely used to guide transportation investments and monitoring measures performance. Vehicle volumes, by contrast, are measured systematically in each state and are reported to the Federal Highway Administration annually to be used in the allocation of federal funds. This paper investigates the advantages and disadvantages of three approaches to the creation of a standard system of pedestrian volume measurement: direct sampling, survey methods, and modeling. Examples of each method are given, and the potential of each to become a national standard is discussed. Of the three approaches, the modeling methods were judged to be most suitable for tracking pedestrian volumes at the national, state, and sub-state level. A standardized pedestrian volume modeling method could make use of existing data sources without generating the need for a new national pedestrian data collection effort.

  11. Aggressive behaviour of drivers in Slovakia affecting road safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zuzana KRCHOVÁ

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Driving a car does not mean only controlling it and bringing it to the destination but it is also a social interaction of drivers towards each other, where emotions play an important role. Destructive emotions e.g. anger worsen the ability of making a decision. And it also holds for the people behind the steering wheel.Abroad, the questionnaires used for the detection of potential aggressive drivers, or diagnostics of drivers who already have a driving license, have a form of survey. In year 2010 was realized a questionnaire about aggressive behavior of drivers in Slovak republic from which came out very interesting information. Some information is mentioned in this paper.

  12. A Case Study on the Walking Speed of Pedestrian at the Bus Terminal Area

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohamad Ali Mohd Firdaus

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Walking speed is one of the factors in understanding the pedestrian walking behaviours. Every pedestrian has different level of walking speed that are regulated by some factors such as gender and age. This study was conducted at a bus terminal area with two objectives in which the first one was to determine the average walking speed of pedestrian by considering the factors of age, gender, people with and without carrying baggage; and the second one was to make a comparison of the average walking speed that considered age as the factor of comparison between pedestrian at the bus terminal area and crosswalk. Demographic factor of pedestrian walking speed in this study are gender and age consist of male, female, and 7 groups of age categories that are children, adult men and women, senior adult men and women, over 70 and disabled person. Data of experiment was obtained by making a video recording of the movement of people that were walking and roaming around at the main lobby for 45 minutes by using a camcorder. Hence, data analysis was done by using software named Human Behaviour Simulator (HBS for analysing the data extracted from the video. The result of this study was male pedestrian walked faster than female with the average of walking speed 1.13m/s and 1.07m/s respectively. Averagely, pedestrian that walked without carrying baggage had higher walking speed compared to pedestrian that were carrying baggage with the speed of 1.02m/s and 0.70m/s respectively. Male pedestrian walks faster than female because they have higher level of stamina and they are mostly taller than female pedestrian. Furthermore, pedestrian with baggage walks slower because baggage will cause distractions such as pedestrian will have more weight to carry and people tend to walk slower.

  13. A Case Study on the Walking Speed of Pedestrian at the Bus Terminal Area

    Science.gov (United States)

    Firdaus Mohamad Ali, Mohd; Salleh Abustan, Muhamad; Hidayah Abu Talib, Siti; Abustan, Ismail; Rahman, Noorhazlinda Abd; Gotoh, Hitoshi

    2018-03-01

    Walking speed is one of the factors in understanding the pedestrian walking behaviours. Every pedestrian has different level of walking speed that are regulated by some factors such as gender and age. This study was conducted at a bus terminal area with two objectives in which the first one was to determine the average walking speed of pedestrian by considering the factors of age, gender, people with and without carrying baggage; and the second one was to make a comparison of the average walking speed that considered age as the factor of comparison between pedestrian at the bus terminal area and crosswalk. Demographic factor of pedestrian walking speed in this study are gender and age consist of male, female, and 7 groups of age categories that are children, adult men and women, senior adult men and women, over 70 and disabled person. Data of experiment was obtained by making a video recording of the movement of people that were walking and roaming around at the main lobby for 45 minutes by using a camcorder. Hence, data analysis was done by using software named Human Behaviour Simulator (HBS) for analysing the data extracted from the video. The result of this study was male pedestrian walked faster than female with the average of walking speed 1.13m/s and 1.07m/s respectively. Averagely, pedestrian that walked without carrying baggage had higher walking speed compared to pedestrian that were carrying baggage with the speed of 1.02m/s and 0.70m/s respectively. Male pedestrian walks faster than female because they have higher level of stamina and they are mostly taller than female pedestrian. Furthermore, pedestrian with baggage walks slower because baggage will cause distractions such as pedestrian will have more weight to carry and people tend to walk slower.

  14. Development of decision support tools to assess pedestrian and bicycle safety : focus on population, demographic and socio-economic spectra.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-06-30

    Despite the increase of these non-motorized trips, bicyclists and pedestrians remain vulnerable road users that are often over represented in traffic crashes. While the currently used methods that identify hazardous locations serve their purpose well...

  15. Simulation of Pedestrian Behavior in the Collision-Avoidance Process considering Their Moving Preferences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhilu Yuan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Walking habits can affect the self-organizing movement in pedestrian flow. In China, pedestrians prefer to walk along the right-hand side in the collision-avoidance process, and the same is true for the left-hand preference that is followed in several countries. Through experiments with pedestrian flow, we find that the relative position between pedestrians can affect their moving preferences. We propose a kind of collision-avoidance force based on the social force model, which considers the predictions of potential conflict and the relative position between pedestrians. In the simulation, we use the improved model to explore the effect of moving preference on the collision-avoidance process and self-organizing pedestrian movement. We conclude that the improved model can bring the simulation closer to reality and that moving preference is conducive to the self-adjustment of counterflow.

  16. Pedestrian crossing behavior, an observational study in the city of Ushuaia, Argentina.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poó, Fernando Martín; Ledesma, Ruben Daniel; Trujillo, Roberto

    2018-04-03

    Pedestrian crashes are a critical problem in Latin American countries. However, little research has been published about pedestrians and even less about their behaviors in a naturalistic context. The objective of the present research was to explore risky pedestrian crossing behaviors in traffic intersections in an argentine city (Ushuaia). It is focused in different stages of the crossing process, traffic code violations, and other potentially risky behaviors such as distractions. A high frequency of risky behaviors among pedestrians was expected. Moreover, according to previous findings, it was hypothesized that men and younger pedestrians would show riskier behaviors. Participants were 802 pedestrians (53.9% females) observed at several intersections (with and without traffic lights) in the city of Ushuaia. Behaviors were codified following a standardized observation protocol. Observers documented information on behavior previous to, during, and after crossing. Gender and age were also registered. Data were gathered through video recording. Frequency analyses of observed behaviors were conducted for the total sample, as well as by gender and by age group. A general crossing risk index was calculated to facilitate comparisons between the genders and age groups. We conducted an analysis of variance to evaluate gender and age differences for this index. A high proportion of risky behaviors were observed among pedestrians. The majority of pedestrian waited in the street (as opposed to on the sidewalk) before crossing, did not comply with traffic lights, or crossed outside the crosswalk. A large number of pedestrians were distracted while crossing. Men presented higher scores on risky behaviors than women. No differences were observed by age group. The high level of risk behaviors during the different stages of street crossing is worrisome and reinforces the idea that pedestrians are responsible for many of the conflicts with motorists. Many of the risky behaviors

  17. From Ant Trails to Pedestrian Dynamics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andreas Schadschneider

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a model for the simulation of pedestrian dynamics inspired by the behaviour of ants in ant trails. Ants communicate by producing a pheromone that can be smelled by other ants. In this model, pedestrians produce a virtual pheromone that influences the motion of others. In this way all interactions are strictly local, and so even large crowds can be simulated very efficiently. Nevertheless, the model is able to reproduce the collective effects observed empirically, eg the formation of lanes in counterflow. As an application, we reproduce a surprising result found in experiments of evacuation from an aircraft.

  18. Pedestrian-vehicle crashes and analytical techniques for stratified contingency tables.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Al-Ghamdi, Ali S

    2002-03-01

    In 1999 there were 450 fatalities due to road crashes in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, of which 130 were pedestrians. Hence, every fourth person killed on the roads is a pedestrian. The aim of this study is to investigate pedestrian-vehicle crashes in this fast-growing city with two objectives in mind: to analyze pedestrian collisions with regard to their causes, characteristics, location of injury on the victim's body, and most common patterns and to determine the potential for use of the odds ratio technique in the analysis of stratified contingency tables. Data from 638 pedestrian-vehicle crashes reported by police, during the period 1997-1999, were used. A systematic sampling technique was followed in which every third record was used. The analysis showed that the pedestrian fatality rate per 10(5) population is 2.8. The rates were relatively high within the childhood (1-9 years) and young adult (10-19 years) groups, and the old-age groups (60 - > 80 years), which indicate that young as well as the elderly people in this city are more likely to be involved in fatal accidents of this type than are those in other age groups. The analysis revealed that 77.1% of pedestrians were probably struck while crossing a roadway either not in a crosswalk or where no crosswalk existed. In addition, the distribution of injuries on the victims' bodies was determined from hospital records. More than one-third of the fatal injuries were located on the head and chest. An attempt was made to conduct an association analysis between crash severity (i.e. injury or fatal) and some of the study variables using chi-square and odds ratio techniques. The categorical nature of the data helped in using these analytical techniques.

  19. The risk of pedestrian collisions with peripheral visual field loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peli, Eli; Apfelbaum, Henry; Berson, Eliot L; Goldstein, Robert B

    2016-12-01

    Patients with peripheral field loss complain of colliding with other pedestrians in open-space environments such as shopping malls. Field expansion devices (e.g., prisms) can create artificial peripheral islands of vision. We investigated the visual angle at which these islands can be most effective for avoiding pedestrian collisions, by modeling the collision risk density as a function of bearing angle of pedestrians relative to the patient. Pedestrians at all possible locations were assumed to be moving in all directions with equal probability within a reasonable range of walking speeds. The risk density was found to be highly anisotropic. It peaked at ≈45° eccentricity. Increasing pedestrian speed range shifted the risk to higher eccentricities. The risk density is independent of time to collision. The model results were compared to the binocular residual peripheral island locations of 42 patients with forms of retinitis pigmentosa. The natural residual island prevalence also peaked nasally at about 45° but temporally at about 75°. This asymmetry resulted in a complementary coverage of the binocular field of view. Natural residual binocular island eccentricities seem well matched to the collision-risk density function, optimizing detection of other walking pedestrians (nasally) and of faster hazards (temporally). Field expansion prism devices will be most effective if they can create artificial peripheral islands at about 45° eccentricities. The collision risk and residual island findings raise interesting questions about normal visual development.

  20. Older driver failures of attention at intersections: using change blindness methods to assess turn decision accuracy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caird, Jeff K; Edwards, Christopher J; Creaser, Janet I; Horrey, William J

    2005-01-01

    A modified version of the flicker technique to induce change blindness was used to examine the effects of time constraints on decision-making accuracy at intersections on a total of 62 young (18-25 years), middle-aged (26-64 years), young-old (65-73 years), and old-old (74+ years) drivers. Thirty-six intersection photographs were manipulated so that one object (i.e., pedestrian, vehicle, sign, or traffic control device) in the scene would change when the images were alternated for either 5 or 8 s using the modified flicker method. Young and middle-aged drivers made significantly more correct decisions than did young-old and old-old drivers. Logistic regression analysis of the data indicated that age and/or time were significant predictors of decision performance in 14 of the 36 intersections. Actual or potential applications of this research include driving assessment and crash investigation.

  1. Pedestrian deaths in children--potential for prevention.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Hamilton, K

    2015-01-01

    The National Paediatric Mortality Database was reviewed for the six year period 1st January 2006 to 31st December 2011 and all pedestrian deaths extracted, after review of available data the deaths were categorized as either traffic or non-traffic related. There were 45 child pedestrian fatalities in the period examined. Traffic related deaths accounted for 26 (58%) vs. 19 (42%) non-traffic related. Analysis of the deaths showed there was a male preponderance 28 (62%), weekend trend 22 (49%) with an evening 16 (35%) and summer peak 20 (44%). The highest proportion of deaths occurred in the 1-4 year age group 24 (53%), with 13 (28%) due to low speed vehicle rollovers, mainly occurring in residential driveways 8 (61%). Child pedestrian fatalities are highly preventable through the modification of risk factors including behavioural, social and environmental. Preventative action needs to be addressed, particularly in relation to non-traffic related deaths i.e, low speed vehicle rollovers.

  2. Pedestrian Flow in the Mean Field Limit

    KAUST Repository

    Haji Ali, Abdul Lateef

    2012-11-01

    We study the mean-field limit of a particle-based system modeling the behavior of many indistinguishable pedestrians as their number increases. The base model is a modified version of Helbing\\'s social force model. In the mean-field limit, the time-dependent density of two-dimensional pedestrians satisfies a four-dimensional integro-differential Fokker-Planck equation. To approximate the solution of the Fokker-Planck equation we use a time-splitting approach and solve the diffusion part using a Crank-Nicholson method. The advection part is solved using a Lax-Wendroff-Leveque method or an upwind Backward Euler method depending on the advection speed. Moreover, we use multilevel Monte Carlo to estimate observables from the particle-based system. We discuss these numerical methods, and present numerical results showing the convergence of observables that were calculated using the particle-based model as the number of pedestrians increases to those calculated using the probability density function satisfying the Fokker-Planck equation.

  3. Family communication patterns and teen drivers' attitudes toward driving safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Jingzhen; Campo, Shelly; Ramirez, Marizen; Krapfl, Julia Richards; Cheng, Gang; Peek-Asa, Corinne

    2013-01-01

    Family communication patterns (FCPs) play an important role in reducing the risk-taking behaviors of teens, such as substance use and safer sex. However, little is known about the relationship between family communication and teen driving safety. We analyzed the baseline data from a randomized trial that included 163 parent-teen dyads, with teens who would be receiving their intermediate driver's license within 3 months. FCPs were divided into four types-pluralistic, protective, consensual, and laissez-faire-and were correlated with the frequency of parent-teen discussions and teens' driving safety attitudes. The ratings on four types of FCPs were distributed quite evenly among teens and parents. Parents and teens agreed on their FCP ratings (p = .64). In families with communication patterns that were laissez-faire, protective, and pluralistic, parents talked to their teens less about safe driving than did parents in families with a consensual communication pattern (p < .01). Moreover, the frequency of parent-teen communication about safe driving was positively associated with teen attitudes toward safe driving (adjusted β = 0.35, p = .03). Health care providers need to encourage parents, particularly those with non-consensual FCPs, to increase frequency of parent-teen interactions. Copyright © 2013 National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Telescopic Mechanism for Truss Structure Bridge Inspection Vehicle Under Pedestrian Excitation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wenwen Sui

    Full Text Available Abstract Nonlinear dynamic analysis of an axially moving telescopic mechanism for truss structure bridge inspection vehicle under pedestrian excitation is carried out. A biomechanically inspired inverted-pendulum model is utilized to simplify the pedestrian. The nonlinear equations of motion for the beam-pedestrian system are derived using the Hamilton's principle. The equations are transformed into two ordinary differential equations by applying the Galerkin's method at the first two orders. The solutions to the equations are acquired by using the Newmark-β method associated with the Newton-Raphson method. The time-dependent feature of the eigenfunctions for the two beams are taken into consideration in the solutions. Accordingly, the equations of motion for a simplified system, in which the pedestrian is regarded as moving cart, are given. In the numerical examples, dynamic responses of the telescopic mechanism in eight conditions of different beam-telescoping and pedestrian-moving directions are simulated. Comparisons between the vibrations of the beams under pedestrian excitation and corresponding moving cart are carried out to investigate the influence of the pedestrian excitation on the telescopic mechanism. The results show that the displacement of the telescopic mechanism under pedestrian excitation is smaller than that under moving cart especially when the pedestrian approaches the beams end. Additionally, compared with moving cart, the pedestrian excitation can effectively strengthen the vibration when the beam extension is small or when the pedestrian is close to the beams end.

  5. Nighttime Foreground Pedestrian Detection Based on Three-Dimensional Voxel Surface Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jing Li

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Pedestrian detection is among the most frequently-used preprocessing tasks in many surveillance application fields, from low-level people counting to high-level scene understanding. Even though many approaches perform well in the daytime with sufficient illumination, pedestrian detection at night is still a critical and challenging problem for video surveillance systems. To respond to this need, in this paper, we provide an affordable solution with a near-infrared stereo network camera, as well as a novel three-dimensional foreground pedestrian detection model. Specifically, instead of using an expensive thermal camera, we build a near-infrared stereo vision system with two calibrated network cameras and near-infrared lamps. The core of the system is a novel voxel surface model, which is able to estimate the dynamic changes of three-dimensional geometric information of the surveillance scene and to segment and locate foreground pedestrians in real time. A free update policy for unknown points is designed for model updating, and the extracted shadow of the pedestrian is adopted to remove foreground false alarms. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, the system is deployed in several nighttime surveillance scenes. Experimental results demonstrate that our method is capable of nighttime pedestrian segmentation and detection in real time under heavy occlusion. In addition, the qualitative and quantitative comparison results show that our work outperforms classical background subtraction approaches and a recent RGB-D method, as well as achieving comparable performance with the state-of-the-art deep learning pedestrian detection method even with a much lower hardware cost.

  6. Nighttime Foreground Pedestrian Detection Based on Three-Dimensional Voxel Surface Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jing; Zhang, Fangbing; Wei, Lisong; Yang, Tao; Lu, Zhaoyang

    2017-10-16

    Pedestrian detection is among the most frequently-used preprocessing tasks in many surveillance application fields, from low-level people counting to high-level scene understanding. Even though many approaches perform well in the daytime with sufficient illumination, pedestrian detection at night is still a critical and challenging problem for video surveillance systems. To respond to this need, in this paper, we provide an affordable solution with a near-infrared stereo network camera, as well as a novel three-dimensional foreground pedestrian detection model. Specifically, instead of using an expensive thermal camera, we build a near-infrared stereo vision system with two calibrated network cameras and near-infrared lamps. The core of the system is a novel voxel surface model, which is able to estimate the dynamic changes of three-dimensional geometric information of the surveillance scene and to segment and locate foreground pedestrians in real time. A free update policy for unknown points is designed for model updating, and the extracted shadow of the pedestrian is adopted to remove foreground false alarms. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, the system is deployed in several nighttime surveillance scenes. Experimental results demonstrate that our method is capable of nighttime pedestrian segmentation and detection in real time under heavy occlusion. In addition, the qualitative and quantitative comparison results show that our work outperforms classical background subtraction approaches and a recent RGB-D method, as well as achieving comparable performance with the state-of-the-art deep learning pedestrian detection method even with a much lower hardware cost.

  7. Agent Based Modeling and Simulation of Pedestrian Crowds In Panic Situations

    KAUST Repository

    Alrashed, Mohammed

    2016-11-01

    The increasing occurrence of panic stampedes during mass events has motivated studying the impact of panic on crowd dynamics and the simulation of pedestrian flows in panic situations. The lack of understanding of panic stampedes still causes hundreds of fatalities each year, not to mention the scarce methodical studies of panic behavior capable of envisaging such crowd dynamics. Under those circumstances, there are thousands of fatalities and twice that many of injuries every year caused be crowd stampede worldwide, despite the tremendous efforts of crowd control and massive numbers of safekeeping forces. Pedestrian crowd dynamics are generally predictable in high-density crowds where pedestrians cannot move freely and thus gives rise to self-propelling interactions between pedestrians. Although every pedestrian has personal preferences, the motion dynamics can be modeled as a social force in such crowds. These forces are representations of internal preferences and objectives to perform certain actions or movements. The corresponding forces can be controlled for each individual to represent a different variety of behaviors that can be associated with panic situations such as escaping danger, clustering, and pushing. In this thesis, we use an agent-based model of pedestrian behavior in panic situations to predict the collective human behavior in such crowd dynamics. The proposed simulations suggests a practical way to alleviate fatalities and minimize the evacuation time in panic situations. Moreover, we introduce contagious panic and pushing behavior, resulting in a more realistic crowd dynamics model. The proposed methodology describes the intensity and spread of panic for each individual as a function of distances between pedestrians.

  8. Using connected vehicle technology to deliver timely warnings to pedestrians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-07-01

    Pedestrian injuries and deaths caused by collisions with motor vehicles are on the : rise in the U.S. One factor that may increase the risk of such collisions is pedestrian : mobile device use. Both field observations and controlled experiments indic...

  9. Probabilistic safety analysis about the radiation risk for the driver in a fast-scan container/vehicle inspection system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li Junli; Zhu Guoping; Ming Shenjin; Cao Yanfeng

    2008-01-01

    A new Container/Vehicle Inspection System called fast-scan inspection system has been developed and used in some countries, which has a special advantage in scanning efficiency of 200 - 400 containers per hour. However, for its unique scanning mode, the fast-scan inspection system causes some worries about the radiation risk for the truck drivers, who will drive the container truck to pass through the scanning tunnel and might be exposed by the radiation beam in accidents. A PSA analysis, which has been widely used to evaluate the safety of nuclear power plant in the past, is presented here to estimate the probability of accidental exposure to the driver and evaluate the health risk. The fault tree and event tree analysis show that the probability of accidental exposure to the driver is pretty low and the main failure contributions are human errors and scanning control devices failures, which provides some recommendations for the further improvement about this product. Furthermore, on the basic of ICRP No.60 and 76 reports, the health risk to the truck driver is only about 4.0x10 -14 /a. Compared with the exempt level of 5x10 -7 /a, it can be concluded that the fast-scan system is safe enough for the truck driver. (author)

  10. Definition of run-off-road crash clusters-For safety benefit estimation and driver assistance development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nilsson, Daniel; Lindman, Magdalena; Victor, Trent; Dozza, Marco

    2018-04-01

    Single-vehicle run-off-road crashes are a major traffic safety concern, as they are associated with a high proportion of fatal outcomes. In addressing run-off-road crashes, the development and evaluation of advanced driver assistance systems requires test scenarios that are representative of the variability found in real-world crashes. We apply hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis to define similarities in a set of crash data variables, these clusters can then be used as the basis in test scenario development. Out of 13 clusters, nine test scenarios are derived, corresponding to crashes characterised by: drivers drifting off the road in daytime and night-time, high speed departures, high-angle departures on narrow roads, highways, snowy roads, loss-of-control on wet roadways, sharp curves, and high speeds on roads with severe road surface conditions. In addition, each cluster was analysed with respect to crash variables related to the crash cause and reason for the unintended lane departure. The study shows that cluster analysis of representative data provides a statistically based method to identify relevant properties for run-off-road test scenarios. This was done to support development of vehicle-based run-off-road countermeasures and driver behaviour models used in virtual testing. Future studies should use driver behaviour from naturalistic driving data to further define how test-scenarios and behavioural causation mechanisms should be included. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Real-time Pedestrian Crossing Recognition for Assistive Outdoor Navigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fontanesi, Simone; Frigerio, Alessandro; Fanucci, Luca; Li, William

    2015-01-01

    Navigation in urban environments can be difficult for people who are blind or visually impaired. In this project, we present a system and algorithms for recognizing pedestrian crossings in outdoor environments. Our goal is to provide navigation cues for crossing the street and reaching an island or sidewalk safely. Using a state-of-the-art Multisense S7S sensor, we collected 3D pointcloud data for real-time detection of pedestrian crossing and generation of directional guidance. We demonstrate improvements to a baseline, monocular-camera-based system by integrating 3D spatial prior information extracted from the pointcloud. Our system's parameters can be set to the actual dimensions of real-world settings, which enables robustness of occlusion and perspective transformation. The system works especially well in non-occlusion situations, and is reasonably accurate under different kind of conditions. As well, our large dataset of pedestrian crossings, organized by different types and situations of pedestrian crossings in order to reflect real-word environments, is publicly available in a commonly used format (ROS bagfiles) for further research.

  12. Evaluation of Beginner Driver Education in Oregon

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dan Mayhew

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Although driver education (DE is widely accepted as an effective teen driver safety measure and widely available in the United States, Canada and elsewhere, evaluations have generally failed to show that such formal programs actually produce safer drivers. To address the issue of safety effects as part of a larger investigation, two studies were conducted to examine whether the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT-approved DE program was associated with reductions in collisions and convictions. In the first study, DE status among a relatively small sample of teens who completed an online survey was not found to have a significant effect on collisions and convictions. In the second study, of a much larger population of teen drivers, DE status was associated with a lower incidence of collisions and convictions. On balance, this suggests that the safety effects of DE are either neutral, based on the results of the first Oregon study, or cautiously optimistic based on the results of the second study. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of making improvements in DE that are evidence-based, and the need for further evaluation to establish that improved and new programs meet their safety objectives.

  13. Motivos de uso y no uso de puentes peatonales en la Ciudad de México: la perspectiva de los peatones Use and non-use of pedestrian bridges in Mexico City: the pedestrian perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elisa Hidalgo-Solórzano

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available OBJETIVO. Analizar los motivos de uso y no uso de puentes peatonales (PP. MATERIAL Y MÉTODOS. Se empleó un diseño transversal, a partir de una muestra de peatones usuarios y no usuarios de PP; se utilizó regresión logística para identificar los factores que influyen en el uso y no uso de PP. RESULTADOS. La prevalencia de no uso fue 50.5% en 813 peatones entrevistados; la principal razón para usar PP fue "seguridad", del no uso fue "flojera". Hubo diferencias significativas al analizar motivos de no uso de PP en las edades de 19 a 36 años, ajustando por escolaridad y características físicas del PP, con RMa. 1.7 (IC95% 1.06-2.86 y RMa. 1.9 (IC95% 1.14-3.33, respectivamente. CONCLUSIONES. Los resultados de este estudio permiten identificar aspectos importantes a considerar desde la perspectiva de los peatones, antes de construir nuevos PP, así como aquéllos que deben mejorarse para incrementar su uso en zonas de alto riesgo de lesiones por atropellamiento.OBJECTIVE. To analyze the motives for using and not using pedestrian bridges (PB. MATERIAL AND METHODS. A cross-sectional survey was conducted of a sample of pedestrian users and non-users of PB; a logistic regression model was used to analyze the motives for use and non-use. RESULTS. The prevalence of non-use was 50.5 % of 813 surveyed pedestrians; the principal reason to use a PB was safety, and not to use it was "laziness". There were significant differences when analyzing the reason of non-use in the age groups 19 to 36 years, adjusted for education and physical characteristics of the PB ([aOR=1.7; 95 % CI=1.06-2.86] and [ORa.1.9; 95 % CI=1.14-3.33], respectively. CONCLUSIONS. The results of this study allow us to identify important aspects to consider "from the perspective of the pedestrians" when constructing new PB and improving existing PB to increase use in areas with a high risk of pedestrian injuries.

  14. Modeling of pedestrian evacuation based on the particle swarm optimization algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Yaochen; Chen, Jianqiao; Wei, Junhong; Guo, Xiwei

    2012-09-01

    By applying the evolutionary algorithm of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), we have developed a new pedestrian evacuation model. In the new model, we first introduce the local pedestrian’s density concept which is defined as the number of pedestrians distributed in a certain area divided by the area. Both the maximum velocity and the size of a particle (pedestrian) are supposed to be functions of the local density. An attempt to account for the impact consequence between pedestrians is also made by introducing a threshold of injury into the model. The updating rule of the model possesses heterogeneous spatial and temporal characteristics. Numerical examples demonstrate that the model is capable of simulating the typical features of evacuation captured by CA (Cellular Automata) based models. As contrast to CA-based simulations, in which the velocity (via step size) of a pedestrian in each time step is a constant value and limited in several directions, the new model is more flexible in describing pedestrians’ velocities since they are not limited in discrete values and directions according to the new updating rule.

  15. Laser-based pedestrian tracking in outdoor environments by multiple mobile robots.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozaki, Masataka; Kakimuma, Kei; Hashimoto, Masafumi; Takahashi, Kazuhiko

    2012-10-29

    This paper presents an outdoors laser-based pedestrian tracking system using a group of mobile robots located near each other. Each robot detects pedestrians from its own laser scan image using an occupancy-grid-based method, and the robot tracks the detected pedestrians via Kalman filtering and global-nearest-neighbor (GNN)-based data association. The tracking data is broadcast to multiple robots through intercommunication and is combined using the covariance intersection (CI) method. For pedestrian tracking, each robot identifies its own posture using real-time-kinematic GPS (RTK-GPS) and laser scan matching. Using our cooperative tracking method, all the robots share the tracking data with each other; hence, individual robots can always recognize pedestrians that are invisible to any other robot. The simulation and experimental results show that cooperating tracking provides the tracking performance better than conventional individual tracking does. Our tracking system functions in a decentralized manner without any central server, and therefore, this provides a degree of scalability and robustness that cannot be achieved by conventional centralized architectures.

  16. Exploring pedestrian movement patterns

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Orellana, D.A.

    2012-01-01

    The main objective of this thesis is to develop an approach for exploring, analysing and interpreting movement patterns of pedestrians interacting with the environment. This objective is broken down in sub-objectives related to four research questions. A case study of the movement of visitors in a

  17. Kinetic theory of situated agents applied to pedestrian flow in a corridor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rangel-Huerta, A.; Muñoz-Meléndez, A.

    2010-03-01

    A situated agent-based model for simulation of pedestrian flow in a corridor is presented. In this model, pedestrians choose their paths freely and make decisions based on local criteria for solving collision conflicts. The crowd consists of multiple walking agents equipped with a function of perception as well as a competitive rule-based strategy that enables pedestrians to reach free access areas. Pedestrians in our model are autonomous entities capable of perceiving and making decisions. They apply socially accepted conventions, such as avoidance rules, as well as individual preferences such as the use of specific exit points, or the execution of eventual comfort turns resulting in spontaneous changes of walking speed. Periodic boundary conditions were considered in order to determine the density-average walking speed, and the density-average activity with respect to specific parameters: comfort angle turn and frequency of angle turn of walking agents. The main contribution of this work is an agent-based model where each pedestrian is represented as an autonomous agent. At the same time the pedestrian crowd dynamics is framed by the kinetic theory of biological systems.

  18. A collision avoidance model for two-pedestrian groups: Considering random avoidance patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Zhuping; Cai, Yifei; Ke, Ruimin; Yang, Jiwei

    2017-06-01

    Grouping is a common phenomenon in pedestrian crowds and group modeling is still an open challenging problem. When grouping pedestrians avoid each other, different patterns can be observed. Pedestrians can keep close with group members and avoid other groups in cluster. Also, they can avoid other groups separately. Considering this randomness in avoidance patterns, we propose a collision avoidance model for two-pedestrian groups. In our model, the avoidance model is proposed based on velocity obstacle method at first. Then grouping model is established using Distance constrained line (DCL), by transforming DCL into the framework of velocity obstacle, the avoidance model and grouping model are successfully put into one unified calculation structure. Within this structure, an algorithm is developed to solve the problem when solutions of the two models conflict with each other. Two groups of bidirectional pedestrian experiments are designed to verify the model. The accuracy of avoidance behavior and grouping behavior is validated in the microscopic level, while the lane formation phenomenon and fundamental diagrams is validated in the macroscopic level. The experiments results show our model is convincing and has a good expansibility to describe three or more pedestrian groups.

  19. Advanced driver assistance systems for teen drivers: Teen and parent impressions, perceived need, and intervention preferences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weiss, Eve; Fisher Thiel, Megan; Sultana, Nahida; Hannan, Chloe; Seacrist, Thomas

    2018-02-28

    From the advent of airbags to electronic stability control, technological advances introduced into automobile design have significantly reduced injury and death from motor vehicle crashes. These advances are especially pertinent among teen drivers, a population whose leading cause of death is motor vehicle crashes. Recently developed advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have the potential to compensate for skill deficits and reduce overall crash risk. Yet, ADAS is only effective if drivers are willing to use it. Limited research has been conducted on the suitability of ADAS for teen drivers. The goal of this study is to identify teen drivers' perceived need for ADAS, receptiveness to in-vehicle technology, and intervention preferences. The long-term goal is to understand public perceptions and barriers to ADAS use and to help determine how these systems must evolve to meet the needs of the riskiest driving populations. Three focus groups (N = 24) were conducted with licensed teen drivers aged 16-19 years and 2 focus groups with parents of teen drivers (N = 12). Discussion topics included views on how ADAS might influence driving skills and behaviors; trust in technology; and data privacy. Discussions were transcribed; the team used conventional content analysis and open coding methods to identify 12 coding domains and code transcripts with NVivo 10. Interrater reliability testing showed moderate to high kappa scores. Overall, participants recognized potential benefits of ADAS, including improved safety and crash reduction. Teens suggested that ADAS is still developing and therefore has potential to malfunction. Many teens reported a greater trust in their own driving ability over vehicle technology. They expressed that novice drivers should learn to drive on non-ADAS-equipped cars and that ADAS should be considered a supplemental aid. Many teens felt that overreliance on ADAS may increase distracted driving or risky behaviors among teens. Parents also

  20. Evaluation of a program to enhance young drivers' safety in Israel.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toledo, Tomer; Lotan, Tsippy; Taubman-Ben-Ari, Orit; Grimberg, Einat

    2012-03-01

    Young drivers in Israel, as in other parts of the world, are involved in car crashes more than any other age group. The graduated driver licensing system in Israel requires that all new drivers be accompanied by an experienced driver whenever they drive for the first 3 months after obtaining a driving license. In an effort to make the accompanied driving phase more effective, a novel program which targets both young drivers and their parents was initiated in 2005. The program administers a personal meeting with the young driver and the accompanying parent scheduled for the beginning of the accompanied driving phase. In this meeting guidance is given regarding best practices for undertaking the accompanied driving, as well as tips for dealing with in-vehicle parent-teen dynamics. Through 2008, almost 130,000 families of young drivers have participated in the program. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, injury crash records of the young drivers who participated in the program were compared with those of all other young drivers that were licensed at the same time period. The results obtained indicate statistically significant lower crash records for young drivers that participated in the program. Limitations of the evaluation related to self-selection biases are discussed, and practical implications are suggested. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.