Some aspects of studying the interaction of pedestrians and drivers of vehicles

Tarasov Aleksandr Yur'evich PhD in Law Head of the Department of Organization of Activities of Subdivisions to Ensure Road Safety of the Moscow regional branch of the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia named after V.YA. Kikot 143150, Russia, Moscow region, Staroteryaevo, MOF MosU of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 1, office 1 7431131@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Tarasova Irina Anatol'evna Doctor of Law Associate Professor of the Department of State and Civil Law Disciplines, Moscow Regional Branch of the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia named after V.Ya. Kikot 143150, Russia, Moscow region, Staroteryaevo, MOF MosU of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 1, of. 1 Tarasovairina2@rambler.ru

According to the global report on the state of road safety for 2019, prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO), the problem of fatal road accidents is getting worse, as they increased to 1.37 million in 2019. In other words, almost 3,800 people die every day on the world's roads ^[4]. Similarly, the same report emphasizes that this is the eighth most important cause of death among diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis. Vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, accounted for 54% of deaths in 2019 (in particular, pedestrians account for 23%). The vulnerability presented by these road users is associated with shortcomings in the organization of traffic and many other factors that affect the interaction of pedestrians and vehicles. This human vulnerability should be a determining factor in the design of transport systems and control not only of the speed of traffic flow, but also in the design of the entire transport infrastructure ^[5].

At the moment when the trajectories of a pedestrian and a vehicle intersect, their interaction occurs, which is quite dynamic, since it depends on many different factors and road situations.

At the same time, the mechanism of interaction between these road users may vary depending on the geometry of the road on which it occurs, the type of traffic organization on this section of the road network, legal awareness and understanding of the legal consequences of illegal behavior of the driver and pedestrian ^[1].

It is important to note that when interacting with a pedestrian and a vehicle, non-verbal language often prevails. This can cause situations in which a pedestrian makes a decision with the approval of the driver, but the latter makes an unexpected decision, resulting in an increase in the conflict situation, which can eventually provoke a traffic accident. The tendency of the driver to give way and the intolerance (assertiveness) of the pedestrian are one of the many factors that can affect this interaction ^{[8, pp. 94-97.]}.

At unregulated pedestrian crossings, where pedestrian priority is not obvious to many drivers, even if legislation supports pedestrian priority, statistics show that pedestrians are less protected. This circumstance leads to a higher level of accidents and deaths of pedestrians compared to regulated pedestrians.

Recently, many studies have been conducted to analyze the interactions of traffic and pedestrian flows, which were aimed at identifying the main factors influencing the development of organizational measures to prevent road accidents and serious consequences from them ^[9].

The analysis showed that such studies were limited by many factors, such as the difficulty of obtaining empirical data through field observations, safety and ethical considerations associated with experiments with people in the real world, as well as the limited amount of modeling developed. Therefore, a better understanding of the driver's behavior at the moment of interaction with a pedestrian can be of great importance for conducting a more optimal analysis. In fact, the interaction of vehicle drivers and pedestrians must be divided into two main processes: the behavior of pedestrians on the road network and the behavior of the driver of the vehicle when interacting with pedestrians.

The behavior of pedestrians was analyzed mainly on the basis of the probability that a pedestrian has to make a decision in a fairly short period of time to cross the carriageway on an unregulated section. On the other hand, the driver's behavior was analyzed with an emphasis on identifying factors that have a greater impact on providing an advantage to pedestrians. Indeed, pedestrian safety depends on various factors, such as vehicle dynamics, driver characteristics, traffic intensity, pedestrian characteristics and various other factors.

The analysis of the driver's safe behavior is of greater importance for ensuring road safety, while it must be taken into account that the driver is inclined to take risks, since he feels protected inside the vehicle, unlike a pedestrian who makes a decision to cross the carriageway, and this decision in no way jeopardizes physical integrity of the driver.

In addition to these two points of view on the behavior of pedestrians and drivers, the arrangement of road transport infrastructure is of great importance. Pedestrians crossing the carriageway at a regulated crossing are characterized by a clear prioritization, which makes it possible to develop a microscopic model of safety at regulated pedestrian crossings, taking into account three important aspects of pedestrian behavior, such as the behavior of pedestrians moving in the opposite direction, the movement of pedestrians in one direction as part of a group and the behavior of pedestrians when interacting with vehicles.

In general, there is a lack of scientific material that allows you to get specific and detailed feedback on various studies in which they tried to model and analyze the behavior of pedestrians on unregulated road sections.

The main purpose of analyzing the interaction of pedestrians and vehicles at unregulated pedestrian crossings is to assess and optimize pedestrian safety. To this end, several studies have been conducted to create a reliable simulation model that most realistically represents the behavior of a vehicle and behavior at a pedestrian crossing ^{[7, pp. 425-437]}. 

Pedestrian movement and driver actions have been investigated, as these variables reflect behavior ultimately associated with conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians. One of the pioneering studies in the field of general behavior analysis was conducted by Sunetal ^{[6, pp. 455-465]}, the main purpose of which was to develop a model for predicting behavior at unregulated pedestrian crossings. The authors studied two different issues. The first was to determine the parameters that affect the pedestrian's decision to accept a certain interval between vehicles as safe, and the second was to determine the parameters that are taken into account when drivers pass pedestrians. The authors collected data that were divided into two groups regarding the behavior of pedestrians and regarding the behavior of drivers.

The results of the study showed that the greatest influence on the decision to cross or not to cross the roadway was the size of the intensity of traffic flow, or rather the distance between cars moving in the same direction, as well as the number of pedestrians waiting and the age of pedestrians.

In the same way Ottomanellietal ^{[3, pp. 68-76]} developed a simplified model simulating the interaction of pedestrians and vehicles at pedestrian crossings. In this model, the parameters were selected in accordance with the criterion of ease of collection established by the authors. The main purpose of the study was to develop a modeling tool that can predict the reaction of a particular design solution and then compare it with alternative design options, assuming that it will be a simple and cheap data collection. The results obtained using the discrete event system model were simulated for an hour (the same duration as in the field). The model demonstrated that the accuracy of predicting the behavior of drivers and pedestrians is 92.6% and 96.3%, respectively. In addition, the study showed that the deceleration of vehicles increases with the increase in the speed of pedestrians.

According to the authors, this is due to the fact that with an increase in the number of pedestrians, the movement of vehicles is interrupted, since the transition takes longer. Drivers are more likely to give way to pedestrians who exhibit assertive behavior (so-called pedestrians who quickly approach a pedestrian crossing), since the probability that the driver will give way increases from 13.7% to 65.5% in the presence of this pedestrian behavior. Thus, the authors concluded that there is a strong correlation between pedestrian behavior and driver behavior.

On the other hand, the authors identified the main factor that influenced the decrease in the probability of pedestrians passing by drivers: the high speed of traffic flow and the low possible deceleration rate of vehicles in the flow.

Factors such as the location of the zebra, the appearance of the pedestrian (blind, carrying a white cane, or sighted), the speed of the first vehicle, the lane along which the first vehicle was moving, the number of pedestrians waiting to cross were statistically significant for determining the probability of a pedestrian passing. The authors demonstrated that drivers were more likely to yield to a pedestrian with a white cane than to a sighted pedestrian. The results also led to the expected conclusion that drivers located in the far lane relative to the pedestrian zone had a lower probability of giving way to a pedestrian standing at the curb than drivers in the near lane. The study emphasizes that as the speed of the vehicle entering or leaving the intersection increased, the probability of pedestrians passing by drivers decreased.

It is also important to emphasize that in the final model, the age and gender of pedestrians and the demographic variables of the driver (age, gender and race/ethnicity) were not statistically significant. As for pedestrian behavior, it has been shown that pedestrians waiting to cross on the side of the road are more likely to give up, giving way to a vehicle than pedestrians waiting on the sidewalk ^[2].

In addition, pedestrians who strongly stated their intention to cross the street were more likely to force drivers to give way. With high traffic and high speeds near a pedestrian crossing, the probability of giving way to a pedestrian is small.

Based on the above, we can draw the following conclusions:

1. Different data, variables and methods were used in each of the above studies, which made it difficult to use a common approach and, thus, to conduct a reliable comparison of results that would clearly identify risk factors and, consequently, common methods that need to be implemented.

2. The heterogeneity of pedestrians, drivers, vehicles and the road environment is not taken into account in the process of modeling conflict situations on the road network.

3. Studies have found that there is a strong correlation between the behavior of pedestrians and the behavior of the driver of the vehicle, but this was not taken into account in the process of micro-modeling of road scenarios.

4. There is currently no consistent approach to ongoing research and analysis covering all tasks (from data collection to modeling).

5. The most interesting and noteworthy, in our opinion, is the study of the analysis of video recordings of field observations, which allows us to take into account in the study a variety of variable factors affecting safety in certain sections of the road network.

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