Pedestrian fatality rate in Poland of 30 deaths per year per million population was the second highest among the EU countries in 2013. In the years 2007-2013 some 13% of pedestrian fatalities and 26% of injuries occurred at unsignalized pedestrian crossings where pedestrians should theoretically be safe. The paper presents results of research project MOBIS which was aimed to develop surrogate safety measures based on detection of dangerous situations or near-accidents. Within the project, pedestrian and vehicle traffic was recorded at four pedestrian crossings in Warsaw and Wrocław, for a period of approximately 2 months per crossing. Motion trajectories of vehicles and pedestrians were determined and certain parameters describing the pedestrian-vehicle encounters calculated. The average number of such encounters was over 1000 per day in both Warsaw and Wrocław. Dedicated video and data analysis algorithms were used to extract interactions that met certain criteria. To this end the following parameters were used: velocity profiles of pedestrians and vehicles, minimum distance between the participants, deceleration during braking, etc. These variables were used to develop surrogate safety indicators for pedestrian-vehicle encounters. A classification of encounters based on the characteristics of pedestrian-vehicle interaction is also proposed. Within the project certain solutions for increasing pedestrian safety at road crossings were installed and evaluated. These included speed cushions and flashing lights warning the drivers about pedestrian presence that were either mounted on traffic poles or embedded in the road surface. The evaluation of these solutions will be based on surrogate safety measures developed in the MOBIS project

Road crossings across two or more lanes in one direction are particularly dangerous due to limited sight distance and high vehicle speeds. To improve their safety, road authorities should provide safety treatments. These may include additional measures to reduce speed and narrow the road cross-section and the introduction of active pedestrian crossings. Equipped with flashing lights activated automatically when a pedestrian is detected, the crossings are painted red and have an anti-skid surface on approaches. The article presents an analysis of road user behaviour at pedestrian crossings on dual carriageways with a varying provision of road safety measures in some Polish cities. It also evaluates the effectiveness of the measures over time. The study was conducted before, immediately after and one year after the additional signage was introduced. The evaluation is based on how vehicle speeds changed before the pedestrian crossing, how pedestrians behaved versus the vehicle and their readiness to cross the street. The number of conflicts on selected crossings was also evaluated. The safety treatments under analysis were found to be less effective than the traditional pedestrian safety measures such as speed cushions or roads narrowed to one lane. This suggests that if used on dual carriageways the measures should only be temporary and should ultimately be replaced with traffic lights or a grade separated solution (a footbridge or tunnel) on exits from urban areas. No clear-cut conclusions about pedestrian safety can be drawn based on the traffic conflicts in question. The article is divided into the following sections: introduction with a review of the literature on pedestrian and driver behaviour studies at pedestrian crossings, including midblock crossings and dual carriageways; a description of the research method and test sites, the results, discussion of the results and conclusion.

The problem of poor quality of traffic accident data assembled in national databases has been addressed in European project InDeV. Vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and moped riders) are especially affected by underreporting of accidents and misreporting of injury severity. Analyses of data from the European CARE database shows differences between countries in accident number trends as well as in fatality and injury rates which are difficult to explain. A survey of InDeV project partners from 7 EU countries helped to identify differences in their countries in accident and injury definitions as well as in reporting and data checking procedures. Measures to improve the quality of accident data are proposed such as including pedestrian falls in accident statistics, precisely defining minimum injury and combining police accident records with hospital data.

The main objective of the study was to verify the effectiveness of active pedestrian crossings equipped with flashing lights activated automatically by detected pedestrians. A pilot study was conducted in two sites, where speed profiles of vehicles over the distance of 30 m before the crossing were analyzed. The study produced promising results in terms of reducing vehicle speeds so the next study investigated four other unsignalized pedestrian crossings. They were video-recorded for 48 h each, before, after and a year after installation. The ANOVA test was used to check the statistical significance of changes in selected indicators. Even after a year from the installation, the effect of the active signage remained significant. The average percentage of drivers yielding to pedestrians was 77.4% higher and the average waiting time 25.2% lower than before the installation. The average speeds of vehicles were 3.53 km/h lower on collector and 2.60 km/h lower on arterial streets. A decline in the probability of a pedestrian being killed or severely injured (KSI) ranged from 6.3 pp (9.4%) on the arterial streets immediately after the installation up to 12.9 pp (31.7%) on the collector streets one year after.

The paper presents findings from research project Mobis which is aimed at developing a method of assessing safety of unsignalised pedestrian road crossings using video image analysis. Pedestrian and vehicle traffic has been recorded at selected zebra crossing sites in Warsaw and Wrocław, before and after installation of active signage systems SignFlash and Levelite. Speeds of approaching vehicles were measured and drivers' behaviour was classified using video analysis. The paper presents a comparison of effectiveness of systems such as SignFlash and Levelite based on changes in the mean and standard deviation of vehicle spot speeds as well as changes in speed profiles of vehicles approaching the crossings. Results indicate that both SignFlash and Levelite active signage reduce mean vehicle approach speeds and have a positive impact on drivers' behaviour.