Pedestrian safety - Global Road Safety Partnership

Pedestrian safety: a road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners
Land-use planning factors that affect pedestrian traffic risk include the following:
• Population density: The frequency of pedestrian crashes in a given area is strongly
influenced by the density of the resident population and the total population
exposed to risk (50).
• Land-use mix: Land-use planning policies and strategies that encourage a greater
mix of land-uses and shorter trip distances make walking more feasible, and safer,
if measures for safe walking have been considered (51,52).
• City structure: There are wide variations in road traffic fatality rates, including
pedestrian rates, across cities with different income levels and even within cities
with similar income levels, implying that city structure, modal share and exposure
of motorists and pedestrians may have a significant role in determining fatality
rates, along with road design, vehicle design and income (2).
Modal share is the proportion of travellers using different modes of transport:
walking, bicycle, motorcycle, car, bus, tram and train.
2: Pedestrian safety in roadway design and land-use planning
2.3 Policy and planning reforms that support
pedestrian safety
Land-use planning and roadway design should accommodate the specific needs of
pedestrians not only to improve their safety, but also to increase pedestrian access
to local services including shops, schools, hospitals, farms, neighbours, public
transportation stops and social meetings (34). Worldwide, pedestrian needs are
increasingly recognized in land-use, public space and transport planning, with an
increasing number of countries making substantial investments in pedestrian safety in
recent years. While some countries, such as China and India, are beginning to increase
their efforts to address pedestrian safety, others such as the Netherlands and Denmark
have already invested in pedestrian safety and walking for a relatively long time (18).
A wide range of land-use planning and road design strategies to improve pedestrian
safety have been developed and implemented in different countries (18,53,54).
Effectiveness of these, and other measures, is discussed and examples of
implementation provided in Module 4 but they generally include:
• controlling vehicle speed;
• developing traffic-calming measures;
• restricting vehicle traffic in residential areas;
• building sidewalks;
• enforcing traffic laws;
• pedestrianizing city centres;
• installing pedestrian signals;
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