Development of pedestrian crash prediction model for a developing country using artificial neural network

Urban intersections in India constitute a significant share of pedestrian fatalities. However, model-based prediction of pedestrian fatalities is still in a nascent stage in India. This study proposes an artificial neural network (ANN) technique to develop a pedestrian fatal crash frequency model at the intersection level. In this study, three activation functions are used along with four different learning algorithms to build different combinations of ANN models. In each of these combinations, the number of neurons in the hidden layer is varied by trial and error method, and the best results are considered. In this way, 12 sets of pedestrian fatal crash predictive models are developed. Out of these, Bayesian Regularization Neural Network consisting of 13 neurons in the hidden layer with 'hyperbolic tangent-sigmoid' activation function is found to be the best-fit model. Finally, based on sensitivity analysis, it is found that the 'approaching speed' of the motorized vehicle has the most significant influence on the fatal pedestrian crashes. 'Logarithm of average daily traffic' (ADT) volume is found to be the second most sensitive variable. Pedestrian-vehicular interaction concerning 'pedestrian-vehicular volume ratio' and lack of 'accessibility of pedestrian cross-walk' are found to be approximately as sensible as 'logarithm of ADT'.