Analyzing the Safety Consequences of Pedestrian Spatial Violation at Mid-Blocks: A Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling Approach

The objective of this study is to understand the impact of a variety of factors on the frequency and severity of pedestrian-vehicle collisions that involve pedestrian spatial violations at mid-blocks. To that end, the historical collision records of the City of Hamilton between 2010 and 2017 were obtained, and collisions that had occurred at mid-blocks were filtered out. A Bayesian structural equation modeling (SEM) framework was developed to investigate the impact of a wide range of factors on such collisions. First, a classical SEM was developed to group the different factors into sets of latent variables. Four latent variables were defined, including location amenities and attractions, pedestrian/road network characteristics, exposure parameters, and location/collision-specific factors. The Bayesian SEM was then implemented to investigate the relationship between the latent variables and collisions. The results showed that the amenities and attractions of a location (e.g., parks, schools, bike-share stations, and bus stops) were the most influential factor on the frequency of collisions that involve spatial violation, followed by pedestrian network characteristics. Pedestrian network characteristics and location/collision-specific factors were found to be the most influential factors on the severity of collisions. The location of bike-share stations, pedestrian network connectivity, exposure to walkers, and the number of lanes were the four observed variables that explained the highest percentage of the variance in each latent group, respectively. The results of this study should assist engineers and planners to develop better design concepts to mitigate collisions that are caused by pedestrian spatial violations in urban areas.