Perpustakaan Digital ITB

A large number of pedestrians and cyclists regularly ignore the traffic lights to cross the road illegally. Ina recent analysis, illegal road crossing behavior has been shown to be enhanced in the presence of incon-gruent stimulus configurations. Pedestrians and cyclists are more likely to cross against a red light whenexposed to an irrelevant conflicting green light. Here, we present experimental and observational dataon the factors moderating the risk associated with incongruent traffic lights. In an observational study,we demonstrated that the conflict-related increase in illegal crossing rates is reduced when pedestrianand cyclist green light periods are long. In a laboratory experiment, we manipulated the color of theirrelevant signals to expose participants to different degrees of incongruency. Results revealed that indi-viduals’ performance gradually varied as a function of incongruency, suggesting that the negative impactof a conflicting green light can be reduced by slightly adjusting its color. Our findings highlight that theobservation of real-world behavior at intersections and the experimental analysis of psychological pro-cesses under controlled laboratory conditions can complement each other in identifying risk factors ofrisky road crossing behavior. Based on this combination, our study elaborates on promising measures toimprove safety at signalized intersections.