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iii DEDICATION To my parents, wife, daughter, brothers and sisters for all their patience, understanding and support
iv AKNOWLEDGMENT I am sincerely greatful to prof. Adli Al-Balbissi for his advice, guidance, support, encouragement and available assistance throughout this work. His leadership in education and research experience provided the opportunity to achieve the goal of the research. he gave me consistant advice and help through all the stages of the thesis and his great efforts are highly appreciated. I would like to thank all the staff members of examining committee: Prof. Adli H. Al-Balbissi Prof. Youssuf M. Siyam Prof. Basem K. Jrew, Member Assoc. Prof. Mohammed S. Tarawneh Many thanks for the following people without their help, this thesis would not have been possible: Captain Moneer Abu-Aloush Captain Eng. Aslan Turk Ahmad S. Arar Abed Altif Aldawood Kamal N. Arar
v LIST OF CONTENTS Subject Page ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Committee Decision ii Dedication iii Acknowledgment. iv List of content... v List of tables ix List of figures... xi List of Abbreviation xii Abstract. xiii Introduction. 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Research Problem... 2 1.3 Objectives... 3 1.4 Research Rationale...... 4 1.5 Methodology... 4 1.6 Thesis Structure... 5 Literature Review.. 6 2.1 Causes of road accidents.... 6 2.2 Pedestrian accidents in Arab countries.. 16
vi 2.3 Pedestrian accidents in Jordan...... 19 Data Collection.. 22 3.1 Definition of study area..... 22 3.2 Pedestrian Traffic Accident Data through traffic report.... 22 3.3 Data collected from field... 23 3.3.1 Traffic Data Collection....... 23 3.3.2 Existence of Public Transportation Lines... 24 3.3.3 Number of schools...... 24 3.3.4 Length and width of the street 24 3.3.5 Number of intersection... 25 3.3.6 Other activities..... 25 3.3 Accident Rate.. 25 3.4 Data analysis....... 25 Results and Discussion. 28 4.1 Distribution of Pedestrian accidents... 28 4.1.1 Distribution per area... 28 4.1.2 Distribution per year... 29 4.1.3 Distribution per age.... 30 4.1.4 Distribution per daytime..... 31 4.1.5 Distribution per month 32 4.2 The highest roads' pedestrian accidents in Zarqa city.... 33 4.3 Factors affecting pedestrian accidents. 35 4.3.1 Road Features... 35 1. Alignment of the Street.... 35 2. Number of Intersections.. 36
vii 3. Weather Conditions and pavement condition... 37 4. Lighting conditions.. 39 5. Driver faults... 39 6. Street activity... 40 7. Street length... 41 8. Street width...... 42 9. Road speed limit.. 44 10. Road direction and number of lanes.. 45 11. Number of intersections per road.. 46 12. Number of public places per road.. 47 13. Number of schools per road... 47 14. Number of mosques per road. 48 15. Existence of green areas.... 49 16. Number of hospitals per road.... 49 17. Number of governmental organizations 50 18. Existence of parking lanes..... 50 19. Existence of public transport rout...... 51 20. Number of entertainment places 51 21. Number of wedding halls...... 52 22. The existence of colleges... 52 4.4 Accident Rate Analysis.. 53 4.5 Pedestrian Accidents Model I.... 59 4.6 Pedestrian Accidents Model II... 61 Conclusions and Recommendations 63 5.1 Conclusions... 63
viii 5.2 Recommendations.... 65 References. 67 Appendices... 70 Abstract in Arabic. 77
ix LIST OF TABLES Table Page ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The distribution of pedestrian accidents in Zarqa zones 4.1 29 4.2 4.3 The distribution of annual pedestrian accident per year The distribution of age category according to slight, severe injuries and fatalities 29 30 4.4 The distribution of pedestrian accident according to daytime 31 4.5 The distribution of pedestrian accidents per month 32 4.6 The most pedestrian accidents danger streets 34 4.7 The effect of street alignment on accidents 36 4.8 The effect of type of intersection of the street on pedestrian accidents 37 4.9 The effect of weather condition on pedestrian accidents 38 4.10 The effect of pavement conditions on pedestrian accidents 38 4.11 The effect of road lighting on pedestrian accidents 39 4.12 The effect of drivers' errors on pedestrian accidents 40 4.13 The effect of the street activity on pedestrian accidents 41 4.14 The effect street length on pedestrian accidents 41 4.15 The effect street width on pedestrian accidents 43 4.16 The effect speed limits on pedestrian accidents 44 4.17 The effect of road direction and number of lanes on pedestrian 46 4.18 The effect of number of public places on pedestrian accidents 47 4.19 The effect of number of schools per street on pedestrian accidents The effect of number of mosques per street on pedestrian accidents 48 The effect of existence of green areas per street on pedestrian accidents 49 4.20 4.21 48
x 4.22 The effect of number of hospitals per street on pedestrian accidents 49 4.23 The effect of number of governmental organizations per street on pedestrian accidents 50 4.24 The effect of existence of parking lanes per street on pedestrian accidents 50 4.25 The effect of existence of public transport rout on pedestrian accidents 51 4.26 The effect of number of entertainment places per street on pedestrian accidents 51 4.27 The effect of number of wedding halls per street on pedestrian accidents 52 4.28 The effect of the existence of colleges in the street on pedestrian accidents 52 4.29 Coefficients of variables of model I 60 4.30 Coefficients of variables of model II 61
xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Pages --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4.1 The distribution of pedestrian accidents per street length 42 4.2 The distribution of total number of pedestrian accidents by street 43 width. 4.3 The distribution of total pedestrian accidents per speed limit. 45 4.4 The relation between the number of pedestrian accidents and the 46 number of intersections. 4.5 Accident rate distribution per year. 53 4.6 Accident rate distribution per area. 54 4.7 Total pedestrian accident rates distribution by road activity. 54 4.8 Total pedestrian accident rate per street length. 55 4.9 Total pedestrian accident rate by street width. 55 4.10 Total pedestrian accident rate by number of intersections. 56 4.11 Total pedestrian accident rates per speed limit. 56 4.12 Total pedestrian accident rate by road direction and number of lanes. 57 4.13 Total pedestrian accident rate according to the number of schools, 58 mosques, green areas and hospitals. 4.14 Total pedestrian accident rate by average daily traffic. 59
xii LIST OF ABBREVIATION EU European Union US, USA United States of America CBD Central business district ADT Average daily traffic WHO World Health Organization DOT Department of Traffic ITS Intelligent Transport Systems UAE United Arabic Emirates GIS Geographic Information System AASHTO American Association of State highway and Transportation officials AR Accident rate m Meter Km/hr Kilometer per hour PHV Peak hour volume SPSS Statical Package for Social Sciences
xiii ANALYSIS OF PEDESTRIAN ACCIDENTS IN ZARQA CITY, JORDAN By Nazmi S. Mahmoud Supervisor Adli Balbissi, Prof ABSTRACT Jordan is one the countries that experienced high pedestrian accidents internationally and among the Middle East countries. Zarqa city is one of the largest cities in Jordan with high pedestrian accident rates compared to other large cities in Jordan. This research aimed at investigating the analysis of pedestrian accidents in Zarqa city. The research was dependent on both the police reports and the field visits to provide the required data to analyze the pedestrian accidents in Zarqa city. The data collected are related to weather conditions, roads' pavement conditions, road lighting at the time pedestrian accident. The data collected about the pedestrian accidents included the pedestrian type of injuries, pedestrian age. The daily traffic volume, street length and width were measured for the purpose of analysis. The collected data were entered to the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Frequencies, percentages and linear regression analysis were run to reach the research results. The results of this research show that the slight and severe injuries are the most dominant in ages equal or less than 20 years old. The results show that most pedestrian accidents occurred at preferable driving conditions; daytime, clear weather, dry surfaces, away of intersections, and street speed limit 40 km/hr. The highest pedestrian accident rates occurred in residential and industrial streets and low average daily traffic. The research recommended that increase of awareness of drivers and pedestrians through education, the control of high accident rates streets through speed cameras control, the use of pedestrian tunnels and bridges in high pedestrian activities are considered the major solutions to improve the pedestrian safety in Zarqa city.
1 INTODUCTION 1.1 Background The problem of deaths and injury as a result of road accidents is now acknowledged to be a global phenomenon with authorities in virtually all countries of the world concerned about the growth in the number of people killed and seriously injured on their roads (Jacobs and Aeron-Thomas, 2000). Jordan is one of the countries that suffer such conditions. The records show that Jordan witness one of the highest accidents records worldwide. In Jordan, high accident rates have been evolved in the last years. The consequences of these accidents varied among slight, severe injuries and fatal accidents. The problem of car accidents is growing in Jordan and become very serious over years. Statistics reported by the Jordan Traffic Institute (2004) indicated that 70266 traffic accidents occurred during the year 2004, which has resulted into a total of 818 deaths and 16727 injuries. Pedestrian were involved during the same period in 7.2% of traffic accidents, that have resulted into 39.9% of accidents deaths and 29.1% of slight accident injuries and 38.7 of sever accident injuries. The number of accidents increases by 17.4% through 2002-2003. The number fatal accidents increased by 9.8%, while the number of the injuries increased by 5.7% within the same period (Omran et al., 2003). The percentage of pedestrian fatalities as compared to fatalities of all traffic accidents is very high in Jordan (43.2 % in 2000) while it ranges for the European Union (EU) countries from 10.4 % in Belgium to 27.5 % in Ireland and it is 12.6 % in United States of America (USA) and 13.1 % in Canada (Latinopoulou et al, 2001). USA has lower values because in the US almost every pedestrian is a driver that makes him/her more familiar with the traffic environment (Choueiri et al, 1993). On the other hand, in Jordan and many other developing countries, there is a low auto ownership, so most journeys
2 are made on foot resulting in more likelihood of people being on the streets facing the risk of being hit by vehicles. Zarqa is one of the governorates that suffer from high deaths related to accidents. In Jordan, the percentage of pedestrian fatalities to the total road accidents fatalities during the year 2003 equal to 40%; but, in Zarka governorate the average of this percentage equal to 54.95% through 2002-2003 (Omran et al., 2003). This reflects the seriousness of the pedestrian accidents in Zarqa city compared to other cities in Jordan. This research is conducted to analyze pedestrian accidents in Zarqa city to figure out the causes of high accidents rates in Zarqa city. 1.2 Research problem As other developing countries, Jordan is facing a high growth rate in population, a tangible improvement in infrastructure and roadway facilities, and an increasing traffic demand. However, the increase of traffic demand is more than the available roadway capacity, especially in central business district (CBD) areas, where high traffic demand increase the probability of having traffic accidents, incidents, or crashes, and the associated loss in lives and money. Unfortunately, Jordan is suffering from a high number of fatal accidents and injuries due to traffic accidents. Although big efforts were performed by concerned ministries, municipalities, and agencies to reduce the number of accidents, they are increasing dramatically. For instance, the number of reported accidents increased from 52796 accidents in the year 2000 to 70266 accidents in the year 2004. On the other hand, in the year 2004, there were 818 deaths and 16727 injuries reported, which is equivalent to 13.4 deaths per 100,000 capita, and 273.2 injuries per 10,000 vehicles (Jordan Traffic Institute, 2004).
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76 Appendix III Network of public Transport routes and Location of Schools in Al-Zarka city