Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night: A Guide (2025)

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NCHRP Research Report 1157 National Cooperative Highway Research Program Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night A GUIDE 

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD 2025 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE* OFFICERS Chair: Leslie S. Richards, Professor of Practice, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Vice Chair: Joel M. Jundt, Secretary of Transportation, South Dakota Department of Transportation, Pierre Executive Director: Victoria Sheehan, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC MEMBERS James F. Albaugh, President and CEO, The Boeing Company (retired), Scottsdale, AZ Carlos M. Braceras, Executive Director, Utah Department of Transportation, Salt Lake City Douglas C. Ceva, Vice President, Customer Lead Solutions, Prologis, Inc., Jupiter, FL Nancy Daubenberger, Commissioner of Transportation, Minnesota Department of Transportation, St. Paul Marie Therese Dominguez, Commissioner, New York State Department of Transportation, Albany Garrett Eucalitto, Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Transportation, Newington Andrew Fremier, Executive Director, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco, CA Martha Grabowski, Professor Emerita, Information Systems, Le Moyne College, Madden College of Business & Economics, Cazenovia, NY Randell Iwasaki, President and CEO, Iwasaki Consulting Services, Walnut Creek, CA Carol A. Lewis, Professor, Transportation Studies, Texas Southern University, Houston Scott C. Marler, Director, Iowa Department of Transportation, Ames Ricardo Martinez, Adjunct Professor of Emergency Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Decatur, GA Russell McMurry, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Transportation, Atlanta Craig E. Philip, Research Professor and Director, VECTOR, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN Steward T.A. Pickett, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY Susan A. Shaheen, Professor and Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, University of California, Berkeley Marc Williams, Executive Director, Texas Department of Transportation, Austin EX OFFICIO MEMBERS Bryan Bedford, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration, Washington, DC Michael R. Berube, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Sustainable Transportation, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC Tariq Bokhari, Acting Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, Washington, DC Steven G. Bradbury, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, DC Steven Cliff, Executive Officer, California Air Resources Board, Sacramento Drew Feeley, Acting Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration, Washington, DC LeRoy Gishi, Chief, Division of Transportation, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior, Germantown, MD Firas Ibrahim, Director, Office of Research, Development, and Technology, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R), Washington, DC Jason Kelly, Deputy Commanding General for Civil Works and Emergency Operations, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, DC Sandra Knight, President, WaterWonks, LLC, Washington, DC Ben Kochman, Acting Administrator, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Washington, DC Niloo Parvinashtiani, Engineer, Mobility Consultant Solutions, Iteris Inc., Fairfax, VA, and Chair, TRB Young Members Coordinating Council Gloria Shepherd, Acting Deputy Administrator, Federal Highway Administration, Washington, DC Karl Simon, Director, Transportation and Climate Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC Paul P. Skoutelas, President and CEO, American Public Transportation Association, Washington, DC Jim Tymon, Executive Director, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Washington, DC Sang Yi, Acting Administrator, U.S. Maritime Administration, Washington, DC * Membership as of August 2025. 

N AT I O N A L C O O P E R AT I V E H I G H W AY R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP RESEARCH REPORT 1157 Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night A GUIDE Michelle Danila Stefanie Brodie Sara Schooley Toole Design Group Silver Spring, MD Rebecca L. Sanders Jessica Schoner Brian Almdale Safe Streets Research and Consulting Portland, OR David Hurwitz Hisham Jashami Kezia Suwandhaputra Oregon State University Corvallis, OR Robert J. Schneider Bryan Walter Natalie Marshall William Henning University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Milwaukee, WI Subscriber Categories Highways • Pedestrians and Bicyclists • Safety and Human Factors Research sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration 2025 

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY NCHRP RESEARCH REPORT 1157 RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed, and implementable research is the most Project 17-97 effective way to solve many problems facing state department of ISSN 2572-3766 (Print) transportation (DOT) administrators and engineers. Often, highway ISSN 2572-3774 (Online) problems are of local or regional interest and can best be studied by ISBN 978-0-309-99555-9 state DOTs individually or in cooperation with their state universities Library of Congress Control Number 2025946045 and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transporta- © 2025 by the National Academy of Sciences. National Academies of tion results in increasingly complex problems of wide interest to high- Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the graphical logo are trade- way authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated marks of the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. program of cooperative research. 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COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAMS CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP RESEARCH REPORT 1157 Monique R. Evans, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Waseem Dekelbab, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs, and Manager, National Cooperative Highway Research Program Inam Jawed, Senior Program Officer Kevin Padilla, Senior Program Assistant Natalie Barnes, Director of Publications Janet M. McNaughton, Senior Editor NCHRP PROJECT 17-97 PANEL Field of Traffic—Area of Safety Rebecca L. Mowry, California Department of Transportation, Sacramento, CA (Chair) Patrick Adams, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Augusta, ME Veronica O. Davis, AtkinsRéalis, Baltimore, MD Joshua Harrouch, Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, Baton Rouge, LA Christi McDaniel-Wilson, Oregon Department of Transportation, Salem, OR Meghan Fehlig Mitman, Fehr & Peers, Walnut Creek, CA Katherine Beckett Suter, Illinois Department of Transportation, Springfield, IL Scott J. Windley, U.S. Access Board, Washington, DC Yuanyuan Zhang, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS Tamara A. Redmon, FHWA Liaison Kelly K. Hardy, AASHTO Liaison AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research reported herein was performed under NCHRP Project 17-97 by the Toole Design Group (Toole Design), Safe Streets Research and Consulting (Safe Streets), the University of Wisconsin– Milwaukee (UW-M), and Oregon State University (OSU). Toole Design was the prime contractor for this study, while Safe Streets led the research design. Michelle Danila, PE, PTOE, of Toole Design and Dr. Rebecca Sanders of Safe Streets were co-principal investigators for this project. In addition, Michelle Danila served as project manager and Dr. Sanders served as research director. NCHRP Web-Only Document 430: Improving Pedestrian Safety at Night [available on the National Academies Press website (nap.nationalacademies.org)], which is supplemental to this report, contains details on the following work performed for the project: a literature review, a national level crash analysis, a multicity case-control analysis, a driver simulation study, a practitioner survey, focus groups, and interviews. The literature review and national level crash analysis were performed and written up by Dr. Robert Schneider of UW-M along with master’s students Bryan Walter, Natalie Marshall, and Will Henning. The multicity case control analysis was performed by Dr. Sanders, with data preparation help from Brian Almdale and Dr. Jessica Schoner. The driver simulation work was performed and written up by Dr. David Hurwitz of OSU, along with Dr. Hisham Jashami and master’s student Kezia Suwandhaputra. The practitioner survey, focus groups, and interviews were performed by Dr. Stefanie Brodie and Sara Schooley of Toole Design. The work was reviewed at multiple stages by the following experts: Dr. Frank Proulx of Frank Proulx Consulting, Dr. Nick Ferenchak of the University of New Mexico, Dr. Tara Goddard of Texas A&M University, Charles T. Brown of Equitable Cities, LLC, and Bill Schultheiss of Toole Design. Photo credits to Toole Design unless otherwise noted. 

FOREWORD By Inam Jawed Staff Officer Transportation Research Board NCHRP Report 1157: Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night: A Guide presents state-of-the-art guidance for state departments of transportation (DOTs) to address the high pedestrian fatalities on roadways, especially at night. Several research methods were employed to develop the guide, including practitioner surveys, focus groups, quantitative crash analyses, case-control analyses, driver simulations, and practitioner interviews. Transportation engi- neers and planners working on safer pedestrian infrastructure will find this guide especially helpful. In 2023, an estimated 7,318 pedestrians died in traffic crashes in the United States (Pedes- trian Traffic Fatalities by State: 2023 Preliminary Data, Governors Highway Safety Association, 2024). This is, on average, one death every 72 minutes. About 75% of these deaths occurred at night. While visibility is obviously the single most important factor affecting pedestrian nighttime safety, there appear to be a host of other factors, including human factors, roadway design, and vehicle speed, whose interplay might also have a role in exacerbating the issue. Those other factors also must be better understood to help develop an effective strategy for improving pedestrian safety at night. Existing common strategies are often limited in their applicability due to funding restraints, technical limitations, policy shortcomings, or other reasons. Research was therefore needed to support state DOTs’ data-driven decisions aimed at improving pedestrian safety at night. For example, in situations where lighting is not feasible because of funding issues or other practical reasons, DOTs needed a menu of alternative multidisciplinary strategies that could help improve pedestrian safety. Under NCHRP Project 17-97, “Strategies to Improve Pedestrian Safety at Night,” Toole Design Group, LLC, was tasked with developing guidance to help state transportation agencies select and incorporate appropriate strategies to improve pedestrian safety at night. The research included a comprehensive literature review, state-of-the-practice surveys, national pedestrian fatality analyses, case–control analyses of severe pedestrian crashes along higher-risk roadways, driver simulations, pedestrian and driver focus groups, and practitioner interviews to explore a wide variety of factors associated with pedestrian risk in darkness as well as how those factors interact with one another. This guide is accompanied by a conduct-of-research report that details the activities performed in the development of the guide. That report is available on the National Academies Press website (nap.nationalacademies.org) by searching for NCHRP Web-Only Document 430: Improving Pedestrian Safety at Night. 



CONTENTS 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 2 Understanding the Rise in Pedestrian Fatalities at Night 4 Creating a Safe System 6 Using This Guide 8 Chapter 2 The Human Factor 8 The Built Environment’s Influence on Behavior 11 Demographic Factors 14 Behavioral Factors 20 Chapter 3 Safe Roadway Design 20 Implement Nighttime Countermeasures 22 Manage Vehicular Speeds 29 Enhance Visibility 38 Reduce Pedestrian Exposure 41 Putting It All Together 46 Chapter 4 Beyond Roadway Design 46 Vehicle Design 48 Countermeasure Implementation and Retrofitting 50 City and State Ordinances and Laws 51 Crash Response 56 Chapter 5 Looking Forward: New Standards to Meet Today’s Safety Challenges 58 References 66 Acronyms and Abbreviations 67 Appendix Nighttime Countermeasures by the Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy