Evaluation of pedestrian crossing behavior and safety at uncontrolled mid block crosswalks with different numbers of lanes in China

This study aims to investigate pedestrian crossing behavior and safety at uncontrolled mid-block crosswalks with different numbers of vehicle lanes. For this purpose, twelve uncontrolled mid-block crosswalks in Wuhan, China were selected to collect data via field investigation. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze pedestrian crossing behavior, and the distribution of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts on different vehicle lanes was given. Three ordered probit (OP) models for pedestrian-vehicle conflicts analysis (PVCA) were established to measure the effects of various factors on pedestrian safety. Descriptive statistical results showed that crosswalks with different numbers of lanes have diverse impacts on pedestrian crossing behavior and safety. As the number of vehicle lanes increases, the proportion of pedestrians adopting the rolling gap crossing mode, crossing the street with others, and changing the speed or path increase accordingly. Moreover, the number of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts at two-way six-lane crosswalks is 5.96 times higher than that of two-lane crosswalks, and 2.04 times higher than that of four-lane crosswalks. From the results of OP models, it was found that pedestrian behavioral characteristics such as rolling gap crossing mode, crossing with others significantly increased the possibility of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts.