Traffic safety perception and its potential impact on travel demand choices

Abstract

In this paper we aim at investigating the potential influences of traffic safety concern and knowledge on travel demand choices and in particular travel mode choice. To this end, a survey is developed and a questionnaire is distributed to collect required information. The survey consists of several sections. First sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals are collected. Respondents are then asked to state their current mode choice decisions given the combination of activity type and trip length. In the next section respondents are informed of some safety figures demonstrating the general safety conditions attributed to each mode of transport. This is done with the intention of making them aware of how safe or unsafe a specific mode could be based on some empirical data. Furthermore they are asked to reveal their preferred mode they would choose by taking into account the knowledge they acquired and also from a pure hypothetical point of view without considering any additional condition. The results show that the general population does not tend to change their mode choice significantly. Moreover, their traffic safety perception was collected by asking them what they think about the probability of getting into an injury crash when taking each mode as well as the severity level of potential possible crash. The results confirmed that there is a collective conformity that public transportation is the safest mode while motorcycle followed by biking are the most dangerous modes of transport. Further analysis at the individual level is currently in progress so as to provide better mode choice models that include traffic safety along with other mode choice determinants.