Causes for Single Accidents Among Pedestrians

Sammanfattning: In the traffic environment, pedestrians account for approximately one thirdof injured road users. The vast majority (95%) are single accidents, i.e.,pedestrian falls without any another part involved. As a result, the SwedishTransport Administration has been tasked with reducing fall accidents. Toeffectively implement appropriate measures, a better understanding of theunderlying causes of these accidents is necessary, which is the objective ofthis study.The literature review identified snow and ice along with unevenness asimportant factors for pedestrian accidents. Other identified causes are busstops due to crowds, weather and winter maintenance due to slippery groundconditions, along with the duration of daylight and choice of pavementmaterial. These factors in addition to less studied causes such as the influenceof construction work, demographic areas and pedestrian flow were investigated.Several methods were used to best analyse each specific cause of accident.Six municipalities in Sweden were investigated, utilizing data from STRADA,weather stations, and the municipalities. The data was primarily processedusing Excel and software for geographical information systems.The results showed that there is no increased risk of falling in places withhigh pedestrian flows if exposure is taken into account. Certain characteristicsof demographic areas could not be proven to influence the accident rate, asareas with higher risk exhibit various locations and environments. STRADAdata proved unsuitable to investigate pavement materials as no conclusionregarding the impact of material could be drawn due to lack of usable data.The influence of construction work was considered minor, as few accidentsoccurred near construction zones in Stockholm. Slippery conditions causedby snow and ice were strongly linked to an increased number of accidents,highlighting the importance of winter maintenance. While the level of wintermaintenance, decided by the maximum time to completed snow removal,may affect the number of accidents; the study did not prove it statisticallysignificant. The accident risk at bus stops was not found to be higher than atother locations, but the accident rate at bus stops showed significant variationsbased on the extent of winter maintenance. Finally, most accidents occurduring daytime, which is consistent with reviewed literature.