Keywords

GIS, Log Linear Models, School Safety, Orange County

Abstract

Abstract Pedestrian /bicycle safety of school children has been a growing menace that has been attracting attention from transportation professionals, school boards, media and the community all over the country. As such there has been a necessity to identify critical variables and assess their importance in pedestrian/bicycle crashes occurring in and around school zones. The current study is an endeavor in this direction. The literature review identified some studies that were conducted on school zone safety related to pedestrian/bicyclist crashes. Most of the studies pertained to crashes with all age groups. There have been few studies with emphasis only on school aged children. In this study we focus on pedestrian age group (4 to 18 years), the time of the day when the school children are expected to be commuting (6:30 AM to 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM to 5:00.PM), the day of week (Monday through Friday) and the days when the school is opened (January 6th to May 31st and August 6th to December 21st). Geographical Information Systems was used to locate buffer zones around schools with higher crash incidence rates. The use of log-linear analysis has culminated in explaining the relationship between various variables and crash incidence or crash frequency Crash data for this study was obtained in the form of crash database and GIS maps from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles and the Orange County School Board respectively. Crash reports were downloaded from the CAR database of the FDOT mainframe website. The crash data was related to the GIS maps to visually depict the proximity of crashes to the school zones and thus identified risky schools and school districts. It was concluded from the spatial analysis that the incidence of crashes was higher at middle schools. In the log-linear analysis different models were i tested to explain the effects of driver characteristics, geometric characteristics and pedestrian characteristics on the crash frequency. It was found that driver age, number of lanes, median type, pedestrian age and speed limit are the critical variables in explaining crash frequency. By examining the levels of the variables that were significantly involved in the crashes we would get an insight on ways to explain and control pedestrian/bicyclists crashes at school zones. It is hoped that this thesis would make an active contribution in improving the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians in and around school zones and make the schools much safer for the children.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2005

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Abdel-Aty, Mohamed

Degree

Master of Science in Civil Engineering (M.S.C.E.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Degree Program

Civil Engineering

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000885

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000885

Language

English

Release Date

January 2006

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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