Objective and Perceived Traffic Safety for Children: A Systematic Literature Review of Traffic and Built Environment Characteristics Related to Safe Travel

Abstract

The literature on children’s active transportation has shown the influence of the built environment characteristics on walking and crashes. Various reviews have examined those two questions. One influence on walking is the perception of traffic safety. However, it is not clear how, or even if, the built environment affects such perceptions. This research aims to understand which traffic and built environment characteristics influence objective and subjective/perceived traffic safety for children based on the analysis of previous studies in the field. Two types of research were used: the first examines the association between traffic and built environment characteristics and child pedestrian and/or cyclist collisions/injuries; the second relates to the perception of safety by parents and children for active transportation and, where studied, its relationship with built environment characteristics. A systematic review was conducted using five electronic databases. The total number of articles retrieved was reduced to 38 following the eligibility criteria and quality assessment, where 25 articles relate to injuries among children and 13 articles pertain to perception of safety. The results showed that high traffic volume and high vehicle speed are the main reasons children and parents feel unsafe when children use active travel, which matches the main findings on objective safety. Few articles on perception of safety related to the objective built environment were found. However, consistent findings exist. The presence of sidewalk was related to the safety of children. The presence of a crossing guard was positively related to perceived safety but was associated with higher rates of injuries among children. Intersection density was related to unsafe perceptions but was not statistically associated with objective traffic safety. Additionally, population density was found to be positively related to injuries among children, but not to perception of safety. The results help policy strategy to enhance the safety of children when using active transport modes.

Factor analysis of community-ranked built environment factors contributing to pedestrian injury risk in Kampala city, Uganda

“…A semistructured questionnaire was used to collect pedestrian information including demographics and the rankings of the perceived contribution of 27 different built environment variables (listed in table 2) to pedestrian injury risk. The list of variables to be considered for ranking was generated based on built environment variables identified as being associated with pedestrian injury from previous research 12–14 16 31 32. Some of the built environment variables were protective of injury risk such as speed calming measures while some increased risk such as arterial roads.…”

“…The theoretical and empirical research that led to the generation of these factors mainly used secondary data and quantitative methods. [12][13][14][15][16] However, a systematic analysis of the community perspective on these factors is lacking in the literature. Moreover, existing research on the perspective of pedestrians and overall road traffic injury risk [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] has focused on a few selected factors but not on as many as possible of the factors advanced by Ewing and other researchers.…”

“…These dimensions have led to several specific factors being identified and used in pedestrian road safety empirical research. The theoretical and empirical research that led to the generation of these factors mainly used secondary data and quantitative methods 12–16. However, a systematic analysis of the community perspective on these factors is lacking in the literature.…”

Enhancing pedestrian perceived safety through walking environment modification considering traffic and walking infrastructure

“…Basu et al ( 21 ) also investigated the influence of built environment factors on pedestrians’ perceptions of attractiveness and safety, but these factors were limited to meso- or macroscale factors, such as land use and landscaping elements, including green areas. Similarly, Amiour et al ( 22 ) systematically reviewed articles on objective and perceived traffic safety, highlighting that only a few papers went into detail on safety perception related to the objective built environment.…”

Access to Parks and Green Spaces in Quebec City, Canada: Developing Children-Specific Accessibility Measures

“…For example, walkability measures typically consider the characteristics of a neighborhood (e.g., density, street design) as well as the distances to amenities, but without consideration of the characteristics of the specific routes connecting origins and destinations (e.g., presence of sidewalks). The presence of sidewalks may be of greater importance to children’s travel than adults’ as parents may not give their children permission to travel owing to traffic danger but children report feeling safer when using them ( 10 ). Other studies solely focus on distances to destinations ( 11 , 12 ), yet the characteristics of the route and the presence of infrastructure play a significant role in children’s accessibility, as safety is a major concern both for children and parents ( 13 , 14 ).…”