The effects of mobile electronic device use in influencing pedestrian crossing behaviour

ABSTRACT

Mobile phone distraction is a global issue in road safety perspective especially involving the pedestrians. A lot of research findings had suggested that the use of mobile phone increase the risk for pedestrians while crossing the road, but there have been very few studies that could explain the said threat in Malaysia’s situation. This study aims to identify the distracted pedestrian behaviour via the video recording method. More than 300 samples were observed as involved in mobile phone distractions while crossing the roads from a total of approximately 1,500 analysed samples. The study also found that the highest mode of distraction observed among pedestrians was the “handheld usage” (conversing) as compared to the “hands-free” and “application usage” modes. In addition, the distractions had significantly affected the time to cross and the observed road users who were involved in “application usage” took longer time to cross. These results provide a prevalence material that may be useful in the development of countermeasures.