ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1553-369X

Year

2020

Season

Fall

Paper Type

Master's Thesis

College

College of Computing, Engineering & Construction

Degree Name

Master of Science in Civil Engineering (MSCE)

Department

Engineering

NACO controlled Corporate Body

University of North Florida. School of Engineering

First Advisor

Dr. Thobias Sando

Second Advisor

Dr. Ramin Shabanpour

Rights Statement

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Third Advisor

Dr. Cigdem Akan

Department Chair

Dr. Osama Jadaan

College Dean

Dr. William F. Klostermeyer

Abstract

Identifying factors associated with older pedestrian fatalities is key to implementing strategies aimed at improving pedestrian safety. This study focused on investigating the leading risk factors for older pedestrian fatalities at Florida roadway intersections. Analyses consisted of a Bayesian logistic regression (BLR) model to identify significant factors influencing pedestrian fatality, followed by a Bayesian Network (BN) model to identify the leading cause of pedestrian fatality among the statistically significant risk factors. Furthermore, the probabilistic inference of the leading causes of older pedestrian fatalities obtained from the BN was conducted through individual evidence predictive inference, diagnostic inference, and combined evidence predictive inference to understand the association with fatality. The models were developed with data from 913 pedestrian-vehicle crashes involving older pedestrians (65 years and older) that occurred at Florida roadway intersections from 2016 through 2018. Among the statistically significant factors retrieved by the BLR, vehicle maneuver, lighting condition, road type, posted speed, and driver age were found to have a direct probabilistic association with older pedestrian fatality. The diagnostic inference revealed that when a fatal pedestrian crash occurs, it is most likely associated with a vehicle moving straight, with a probability of 85.01%. Findings from this study can be used to inform the next step before developing effective countermeasures for reducing the number of fatalities of older pedestrians in pedestrian-vehicle crashes.

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