ABSTRACT
Objective: Pedestrian safety is considered as one of the greatest concerns, especially for developing countries. In the year of 2015, about 48% pedestrian accidents with 56% fatalities occurred at mid-blocks in Beijing. Since the high frequency and fatality risk, this study focused on pedestrian accidents taking place at mid-blocks and aimed at identifying significant factors. Methods: Based on total 10,948 crash records, a binary logit model was established to explore the impact of various factors on the probability of pedestrian’s death. Furthermore, first-degree interaction effects were introduced into the basic model. The Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test was used to assess the model performance. Odds ratio was calculated for categorical variables to compare significant accident conditions with the conference level. Variables within consideration in this study included weather, area type, road type, speed limit, pedestrian location, lighting condition, vehicle type, pedestrian gender and pedestrian age. Results: The calibration results of the model show that the increased fatality chances of an accident at mid-blocks are associated with normal weather, rural area, two-way divided road, crossing elsewhere in carriageway, darkness (especially for no street lighting), light vehicle, large vehicle and male pedestrian. With road speed limit increasing by 10 km/h, the probability of death accordingly increases by 46%. Older victims have higher chances of being killed in a crash. Moreover, three interaction effects are found significant: rural area and two-way divided, rural area and crossing elsewhere as well as speed limit and pedestrian age. Conclusions: This study has analyzed police accident data and identified factors significant to the death probability of pedestrians in accidents occurred at mid-blocks. Recommendations and improving measures were proposed correspondingly. Behaviors of different road users at mid-blocks should be taken into account in the future research.