Investigation of human safety based on pedestrian perceptions associated to silent nature of electric vehicle

Abstract

Urbanization in addition to employ of green technology has boosted the use of electric vehicles in the cities. Since electric vehicles are free from exhaust gases, there would be an improvement in environmental conditions; however, an unintentional upcoming risk is observed due to the silent feature of electric vehicles. Similarly, the rising trend of accidents causes major injury or even permanent disability which is strongly associated with human health and global safety. This study attempts to address three extensive objectives. Is human health risk associated with the silent nature of electric vehicles from the pedestrian's gender perspective? Is the safety of pedestrians depending upon the distance traveled by them? How the age group is responsible for any fatal or accidents? Quantitative primary data were collected from 401 pedestrian respondents through an extensive questionnaire survey carried out in Mumbai, India. The hypothesis is evaluated to justify the human health risk associated with the low noise of electric vehicles based on their technical response. In addition to ANOVA, a nonparametric tool was used to analyze perceived risk in the sense of human health. Utilizing the ground level essential information obtained from the road users, the authors have investigated the key risk associated with electric vehicles. The results showed that nominal/severe accidents may cause injury to pedestrians and thereafter it leads to temporary or permanent disability; thereby it is a foremost important condition for road users to identify the presence of electric vehicles while walking on the road. The study indicates that human safety is closely linked to the safe travel of pedestrians. The quiet nature of electric vehicles are difficult for a pedestrian to identify their presence on the road which is an alarming situation for the possibility of accidents, however, there is no significant difference between the people (road users) who travel a short or long distance in a day. It is the foremost requirement to recognize the level of consequence in the context of accidents to improve the global health.