Citation

Šurdonja S, Otković II, Deluka-Tibljaš A, Campisi T. Transp. Res. Proc. 2023; 69: 560-567.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publications)

DOI

10.1016/j.trpro.2023.02.208

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Road accidents are one of the main causes of child mortality, and research results show that children do not have an adequate perception of traffic risks and are prone to insecure and impulsive reactions in traffic situations. The data clearly show that educational and restrictive measures need to be complemented by engineering measures that shape pedestrian transport infrastructure (especially crosswalks) according to the needs of vulnerable traffic users. The influence of children's age, gender, group movement, supervision, distractions and the influence of traffic infrastructure has been widely studied. In articles previously published by the authors, on the basis of field research involving child pedestrians at zebra crosswalks in the vicinity of primary schools in two Croatian and one Italian city, several parameters were identified as significant for the development of the linear regression model for the speed of child pedestrians. Statistical analysis showed that the statistically significant parameters are related to the design of the conflict zone of the transport infrastructure, as well as traffic regulation. As the developed model is considered complex with regard to the number of parameters, a simplified model will be developed in the following of this article. In the first phase, a simplified model with exclusively infrastructural parameters will be developed that would allow a simple application in solving various engineering and planning problems in traffic infrastructure, and its accuracy will be tested. In subsequent phases, models including other main/simple parameters will be developed and tested and the models will be compared. The simplified models thus developed could be used in the early stages of planning by professionals to test or plan pedestrian traffic infrastructure or traffic signals in corridors that are regularly used by children on the basis of easily definable parameters - considering the infrastructure elements and basic data on children.

SR2S

Language: en

Keywords

children pedestrians; crosswalks; influencing parameters; model development