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

Collisions between vehicles and pedestrians continue to occur at a high rate each year, resulting in several thousand pedestrian injuries and deaths in the United States alone. In addition to the natural environmental factors (i.e. precipitation, lighting, temperature, etc.), factors related to the infrastructure in which pedestrians walk impact the safety performance of a given roadway segment. The objective of this paper is to identify infrastructural elements which contribute to pedestrian-vehicle collisions. For this purpose, data from NASS-GES (National Automotive Sampling System - General Estimates System) was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The corresponding approach allows grouping multiple exogenous factors contributing to pedestrian collisions into groups (i.e. dimensions) consisting of multiple variables providing a more comprehensive analysis of the safety of roadway features. The findings may allow the avoidance of undesired/dangerous design standards adopted by traffic/transportation engineers through altering the surrounding physical environment (like adding artificial light to dark roadways) and thus providing better protection for pedestrians.