Multinomial Logit Model of Pedestrian Crossing Behaviors at Signalized Intersections

Pedestrian crashes, making up a large proportion of road casualties, are more likely to occur at signalized intersections in China. This paper aims to study the different pedestrian behaviors of regular users, late starters, sneakers, and partial sneakers. Behavior information was observed manually in the field study. After that, the survey team distributed a questionnaire to the same participant who has been observed, to acquire detailed demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as attitude and preference indicators. Totally, 1878 pedestrians were surveyed at 16 signalized intersections in Nanjing. First, correlation analysis is performed to analyze each factor’s effect. Then, five latent variables including safety, conformity, comfort, flexibility, and fastness are obtained by structure equation modeling (SEM). Moreover, based on the results of SEM, a multinomial logit model with latent variables is developed to describe how the factors influence pedestrians’ behavior. Finally, some conclusions are drawn from the model: (1) for the choice of being late starters, arrival time, the presence of oncoming cars, and crosswalk length are the most important factors; (2) gender has the most significant effect on the pedestrians to be sneakers; and (3) age is the most important factor when pedestrians choose to be partial sneakers. 1. Introduction Due to high population density, rapid urbanization, and lack of adherence to traffic regulations by both drivers and pedestrians, traffic accidents involving pedestrians have become a major safety problem all over the world, particularly in developing countries. For example, in 2009, 16683 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in China, representing 24.62% of all traffic fatalities [1]. However, 4092 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes, accounting for only 12.10% of the fatalities sustained in police-reported motor vehicle crashes in the US in 2009 [2]. Crashes involving pedestrians are most likely to occur when pedestrians are crossing roads, especially crossing at signalized intersections. In China, more than 50% of pedestrian crashes occurred at signalized intersections [1, 3]. However, illegal pedestrian behavior is common and widespread in China. Yang et al. claimed that, in developing cities like Xi’an, if a pedestrian is waiting at a signalized intersection, in most cases they are waiting for an acceptable gap in traffic and not for the green signal [4]. According to our study on the behaviors of 6628 pedestrians at 102 signalized crosswalks, the average compliance rate is only 62.8%.