Enhancing safe walking in an ageing society: Insights into injury severity of older pedestrian traffic crashes in urban environments

Active mobility, particularly walking, is fundamental for older adults, offering significant health benefits. However, this group of pedestrians is especially vulnerable to traffic collisions, as they represent most pedestrian deaths. The perception of traffic crash risk might alter the walking activity among them. This research aimed to explore how to enhance walking among older adults from the road safety perspective. To achieve this aim, this study analyzes the factors influencing the injury severity of older pedestrians involved in vehicle collisions while comparing two methodologies for classifying traffic crash severity. Crash-specific features of single vehicle-pedestrian collisions on all urban roads in Spain from 2016 to 2019 were studied along with information from the municipality where each collision occurred. Logistic regression and random forest were used to classify the crashes in terms of the injury level of the pedestrian. These models were trained for older and non-older pedestrian collision samples using resampling techniques. The models showed common and different factors affecting older and non-older pedestrian injury severities. All pedestrian injury severity is likely to be more severe with a higher pedestrian age, artificial lighting, and truck as the vehicle, and is likely to be less severe with a population size of over 500 thousand inhabitants, and if the vehicle is a bicycle. Additionally, older pedestrian crashes are likely to be more severe in dawn and dusk lighting, with bus as vehicle, and with higher value of road intersections per km, and less severe during afternoon time, and if the population size is from 50 to 100 thousand. Although in larger cities more crashes are registered in absolute values, smaller towns expect more severe pedestrian traffic crashes. Policy-makers should implement countermeasures to promote walking activity and mitigate injury severity of older pedestrians, as these are not expected to deteriorate the road safety of the rest of pedestrians. These countermeasures include proper artificial lighting, even during dawn and dusk hours, and special signaling devices, especially in aged areas. • Traffic crashes are a threat of walking, especially for older pedestrians. • Older and non-older pedestrian injury severities were compared and modelled. • Results suggest that lightning and signaling are needed, especially in aged areas. • Proposed measures are not likely to worsen the rest of pedestrians' road safety. • Policymakers should implement measures to promote walking among older adults.