The Influence of Urban Crossroad Facilities on Pedestrian Safety in Shanghai, China

With the development of economic, the traffic requirement rapidly increases in Shanghai. Besides building more new infrastructures, the administrators put forward to many countermeasures to increase the vehicle traffic capacity previously and to meet the traffic requirement in China. At the same time, the urban traffic facilities are set up by different departments of government during different periods, and the urban traffic facilities designers and administrators do not pay more attentions to the vulnerable road users’ safeguard. As a consequence, there are many imperfect urban traffic facilities which put vulnerable road users in a high risk situation. The pedestrian is the most vulnerable among road users. The crossroad is a typical and practical intersection. The crossroad facilities mainly comprise of vehicle lane, crosswalk, safety island, pavement, pedestrian signal light, guardrail, and other facilities nearby crossroad such as bus station and pillar of high elevation in Shanghai. To research the influence of urban facilities on pedestrian safety, the rate of traffic law violation (RTLV) evaluates the behavior character and dangerous situation of pedestrian. Based on investigation of five types of twice-crossing intersection and sixteen pavements in Shanghai, the more number of vehicle lanes there are at crossroad, the more time pedestrian will wait for, and the less RTLV there is. Within 90 seconds the RTLV decreases with the waiting time increasing, while more than 90 seconds the RTLV is irregular. The reasonable time which pedestrian waits for is 90 seconds. The width of pavement has more effective impacts on pedestrian traveling along pavement than length of guardrail. The imperfect installation of bus station nearby crossroad and crosswalk nearby the pillar of high elevation are analyzed in the paper. Considering the blind area between pedestrian and driver due to parking bus, the minimum distance between crosswalk and bus station is given. The integration safety evaluating coefficient (ISEC) comprises of five factors, including pedestrian signal light, guardrail, safety island, number of vehicle lane and whether pedestrian starting from sidewalk. The RTLV of pedestrian decreases when the ISEC of crossroad increases.