Evaluation of pedestrian safety

Pedestrian-involved crashes that occurred in the city of San Francisco, California, over 6 years from 2002 to 2007 were analyzed to evaluate two key aspects of pedestrian safety: occurrence and severity. This analysis was done to identify locations with frequent occurrences of pedestrian-involved crashes and to examine various risk factors for the injury severity of pedestrian-involved crashes. A geographical information system analysis for hot spot identification showed that the frequency of pedestrian crashes was greater in the vicinity of the central business district but that the crash rate (the number of crashes per walking trip) was higher in the periphery of the city. For injury analysis, an ordered probit model was specified to evaluate risk factors that increased the probability of severe injury and fatality. Those factors were age (<15 and ≥65), alcohol consumption, and cell phone use among pedestrian characteristics; nighttime, weekends, and rainy weather among environmental characteristics; and, among crash characteristics, the influence of alcohol, larger vehicles (pickups, buses, and trucks), and vehicles proceeding straight and striking a pedestrian. The methods discussed are readily applicable to the evaluation of safety performance in other regions where pedestrian crash data are available.