Evaluation of Pedestrian Behavior on Mid-block Crosswalks: A Case Study in Fortaleza—Brazil

In urban streets, pedestrians compete with vehicles for right-of-way. In some situations, it may be very challenging for pedestrians to deal with complex, sometimes hostile, traffic conflicts, especially in urban areas. This paper provides an exploratory analysis of pedestrian behavior on four types of mid-blocks crossing facilities in the city of Fortaleza, Brazil. The analysis was based on descriptive statistics and logistic regression models of variables related to signal control, facilities, and pedestrian characteristics and behavior. The models considered the following binary variables: (i) crossing vs. no crossing during pedestrian red phase; (ii) driver yielded vs. did not yield while pedestrian crossing; (iii) normal vs. aggressive/risked pedestrian behavior while crossing. A total of 2,400 crossings were considered in this study. The results show that, in general, the increase of traffic demand was related to easier crossings. Moreover, the presence of raised crosswalks increased in about 20 times the chances of a driver yielding to pedestrians in comparison to the marked-only crosswalk. In addition, the presence of mechanisms that facilitate pedestrian crossings such as raised crosswalks or traffic signals reduced the number of aggressive/risked crossings considerably.