Evaluation of the Impact of Different Factors on Pedestrian Safety by Near-Crash Events

Walking is the most traditional mode of transportation that still plays an important role in daily life and since the development of motor vehicles, the issue of pedestrian safety has become important. One of the most important factors affecting pedestrian safety is pedestrian characteristics and behaviors. Valid data are needed for investigating the effects of various factors. However, variables related to behavioral data such as mental conditions cannot be found in the crash database. Thus, in this study, instead of crash data, near-crash data was used. in this regard, using a questionnaire, the number of near-crash data and various aspects of 378 pedestrians' data were collected. Then, the effects of different factors on the pedestrian safety were investigated. In this regard, the effects of various personal characteristics (included age, education, average monthly income and driving years), mental health, walking experience, violations and the feeling of safety while walking on the pedestrian safety were investigated by considering near-crash events and using SEM technique and SmartPLS software. Results indicated that, among the study factors, the violations with a loading of 3.809 and the pedestrians' personal characteristics included age, education, average monthly income and driving years, with a loading of 2.127 have the most and the least impacts on the pedestrian safety. Besides, mental health with a 2.515, walking experience with a 2.446 and the feeling of pedestrian safety while walking with a 2.308 loading affect pedestrian safety.