CEE’s Angelina Caggiano Publishes Paper on “Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons” in Journal of Safety Research

Between 2011 and 2021, the number of pedestrian deaths in the United States increased 66 percent, to over 7,400 per year, and some three-quarters of pedestrian fatalities occur outside of intersections, such as at midblock crossings, where drivers are less likely to notice pedestrians. In response to this critical safety issue, Ph.D. candidate Angelina Caggiano of the UMass Amherst Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department was the lead author on her first paper published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. Her paper in the Journal of Safety Research describes trailblazing research on one solution to pedestrian fatalities known as “pedestrian hybrid beacons,” or PHBs. See An evaluation of driver comprehension of the Pedestrian Hybrid Beacon - ScienceDirect.

“A PHB is a special type of hybrid beacon used to warn and control traffic at an unsignalized location to assist pedestrians in crossing a street or highway at a marked crosswalk,” the Journal of Safety Research paper explains. The paper goes on to say that “PHBs are used as a method of increasing the safety of vulnerable road users by stopping vehicles at high-traffic and high-speed midblock crosswalks. This study was developed to evaluate both driver behavior and comprehension related to the use of PHBs in Massachusetts.” 

Click here to read full article