Individual differences of pedestrian behaviour in midblock crosswalk and intersection

Abstract Motor vehicle crashes involving pedestrians have recently become a major traffic safety problem. Pedestrian error is defined as a risk event that can be described by uncensored waiting duration. This paper presents a parametric duration model for analysis of pedestrian behaviour in midblock crosswalk and intersection, which can be used to explain when and why pedestrians cross the street in error. In order to identify individual differences in pedestrian behaviour based on specific error-inducing factors in midblock crosswalk and intersection, the endurance probability and risk rate for pedestrian crossing behaviour are calculated with different waiting durations by the exponential, Weibull and log-logistic distributions. The results show the relationship of pedestrian behaviour and waiting duration. Keywords: motor vehicle crashespedestrian violationwaiting durationtraffic safety Acknowledgements This work is partially supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation under grant 1072467, the National Nature Science Foundation of China under grant 50878023 and the National Basic Research Program of China 2006CB705500.