Modelling the relationship between pilgrims’ pedestrian casualties and land use type: a case study of Al Madinah Al Monawarah

Abstract

The growing fatality of road traffic accidents in most cities constitutes a public health challenge. Annually, about 1.24 million people are killed from road accidents, among which more than one fifth of these deaths occur among pedestrians. Pedestrian collisions are even more prevalent in cities that host mass gathering events such as the Hajj. Yet this phenomenon has been neglected within the existing literature. Correspondingly, this research examines the relationship between pilgrims’ pedestrian casualties and the land use type in Madinah. The relationship between the land use and pedestrian casualty was determined from pilgrims pedestrian casualty data (N=2204) from 2001 to 2005 supplied by the Madinah Police Department. The accident data is characterized by the personal and socio-demographic attributes of the victims as well as the land use type of the accident.The significant findings from this study show that male pilgrims were over represented in pedestrian casualty in Madinah. This is consistent with other road accident studies in Arab-Muslim countries which also recorded higher male casualty compared to female. Again, more men embark on pilgrimage than their female counterpart. Young pilgrim (12-20’s) pedestrians suffer the most casualties; while the least casualty was recorded for child pilgrim pedestrians (