Caracterização da frequência e severidade de interações pedestre-veículo em travessias semaforizadas de Fortaleza-CE

Abstract

Pedestrians as a vulnerable road user still are a significant portion of traffic fatalities, and the crossing is the most critical moment of its route, due to the interaction with other users. Urban planning currently incorporates the need to provide cities for people, following the trend of highlighting the protagonism of the pedestrian and promoting measures that guarantee an increasingly safe walk. The use of traffic conflicts as an alternative safety measure to observed accidents has been widely studied in road safety. This research aims to evaluate the frequency and severity of pedestrian-vehicle interactions in red crossings at traffic lights, focusing on the individual attributes of pedestrians, and the geometric and operational characteristics of the road. Therefore, a characterization of the interactions and an exploratory analysis of the variables that can influence the frequency and severity of these events were carried out. Three signalized crosswalks were analyzed, located on arterial roads in Fortaleza, with three and four lanes and speed limits of 50km/h and 60km/h. The interactions were evaluated from the observation of traffic videos, and from a semi-automatic analysis, focusing on the Post-Encroachment Time (PET) indicator and on the behavioral aspects of the users. An exploratory analysis of the estimated PET values showed that interactions involving men, people alone, with motorcycles approaching and with vehicles coming from the right turn, have significantly lower values. The relationship between vehicular flow and the occurrence of interactions was investigated, and it was possible to notice that the more intense the flow, the less interactions tend to happen, but usually more serious. In addition, it was possible to identify that 57% of interactions can be classified as light, 30% are moderate and 13% are serious. Finally, a multinomial logit model was developed, showing that factors such as gender, grouping, the moment of arrival of the pedestrian at the crossing, the vehicle involved and the type of interaction, can in fact significantly influence the occurrence of the most critical events.