Mixed logit approach to analyzing pedestrian injury severity in pedestrian-vehicle crashes in North Carolina: Considering time-of-day and day-of-week

Objective The objective of this research is to identify and compare contributing factors to pedestrian injury severities in pedestrian-vehicle crashes considering both time-of-day and day-of-week. Methods The pedestrian-vehicle crash data are collected from 2007 to 2018 in North Carolina with categorical factors of pedestrian, driver, vehicle type, crash group, geography, environment, and traffic control characteristics. The final dataset includes 17,904 observations with 69 categorized variables. Four mixed logit models are developed to analyze the crash dataset with segmentations of weekday daytime, weekday nighttime, weekend daytime, and weekend nighttime. Results A total number of 31 fixed significant factors and 6 random parameter factors to the pedestrian injury severity are detected in four mixed logit models. According to marginal effects, large vehicle involved, pedestrians with age over 65, hit and run, drunk pedestrian, down/dusk light, dark without roadside light, and industrial land use are identified as the contributing factors that result in more than a 0.08 increase in the probability of fatal injury. Compared to the daytime, most factors are found to have more impact on severe injuries in the nighttime. Also, most factors are found to result in more severe injuries on weekends than on weekdays. Conclusions This study identifies and compares the factors to pedestrian injury severity in pedestrian-vehicle crashes considering the temporal variance in time-of-day (i.e., daytime vs. nighttime) and day-of-week (i.e., weekdays vs. weekends). Random effects are explored in mixed logit models. Differences and possible reasons for the significant factors' impact within and across time-of-day and day-of-week are also investigated. Corresponding countermeasures and suggestions to mitigate the impacts of major factors are also discussed, which give practical guidance to planners and engineers, and provide a solid reference to further explore the temporal variance of the crash data.

Automated summary

This research aims to identify and compare factors contributing to pedestrian injury severities in pedestrian-vehicle crashes considering time-of-day and day-of-week. The study analyzed pedestrian-vehicle crash data in North Carolina from 2007 to 2018 using mixed logit models, revealing significant factors that influence pedestrian injury severity. Major factors such as involvement of large vehicles, elderly pedestrians, hit and run incidents, drunk pedestrians, lighting conditions, and land use were found to increase the probability of fatal injury. The study also found that factors have a greater impact on severe injuries at night compared to daytime, and more severe injuries occur on weekends than on weekdays.