Illegal mid-block pedestrian crossings in China: gap acceptance, conflict and crossing path analysis

Abstract

China has experienced unprecedented economic growth and changes in urban form in the past decades. Increased urbanisation and motorisation puts pedestrians and automobiles at greater conflict. Because of China's long urban blocks (superblocks), many conflicts occur mid-block at informal or illegal crossings. This study focuses on factors influencing mid-block crossing and gap acceptance. We remotely observed illegal mid-block crossing of a six-lane urban arterial in Kunming, China, tracking 522 accepted gaps and 152 rejected gaps in a two-stage crossing (roadside to median and median to roadside). We fit a probit discrete outcome model to the data to estimate environmental determinants of gap acceptance (and rejection) behaviour, including gap size, vehicle speed, time waiting and gap lane position. We also estimate a conflict model, focusing on parameters that influence the probability of vehicle speed changes or lane deviations.

Keywords:

• China
• pedestrian safety
• mid-block crossing
• crossing behaviour model
• pedestrian gap acceptance

Acknowledgements

The authors would acknowledge the support from National Natural Science Foundation of China, in the project ‘Theory and Methodology Study on Coordinated Control of Traffic Flow in Urban Rapid and Auxiliary Roads’ (60874078) and the University of Tennessee's Southeast Transportation Centre. The authors appreciate the data collection support of Ren Zhang and Chenrong Xie and review from Jada Huskey. The views and conclusions presented here are solely the responsibility of the authors.