The effects of mobile phone use on pedestrian crossing behavior and safety at unsignalized intersections

More and more pedestrians use mobile phones in daily traffic activities. Using mobile phones makes pedestrians a distraction when they cross the street, thus it's dangerous, especially at unsignalized intersections. This paper aims to find out how the using of mobile phones (such as talking, watching the screen and listening to music) affects the behavior and safety of pedestrians while crossing the street. The data survey was carried out at three unsignalized intersections in Wuhan, China. Through video processing and analysis, data of the proportion of people who use mobile phones, pedestrians' personal characteristics and behaviors, and traffic volume are acquired. The number of traffic conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles is determined to be the index of pedestrian safety. In order to quantitatively analyze pedestrian safety, a logistic regression model was constructed and it included variables: manner of using mobile phones, personal characteristics, and traffic volume. The results show that pedestrians who use mobile phones while crossing the unsignalized intersections are at higher accident risk than those do not use mobile phones.