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.

A Real Time Dynamic Approach for Management of Vehicle Generated Traffic

“…There is no appreciable difference between persons (road users) who travel a short or long distance in a day, making it worrying for the risk of accidents since pedestrians find it difficult to recognise electric vehicles' presence on the road due to their quiet nature. Recognizing the severity of the consequences in the context of accidents is essential for enhancing global health as discussed by Patil et al 28) Taking into consideration everything that has been said about traffic congestion until now, one thing that it can certainly be concluded is that this problem is going to get worse in the near future. The negative effects include wastage of time and fuel, delays, inconvenience, economic losses, environmental pollution, stressed and frustrated motorists, stuck emergency vehicles and causing higher chances of collision due to such close proximity.…”

Step-by-step social life cycle assessment framework: a participatory approach for the identification and prioritization of impact subcategories applied to mobility scenarios

“…We identified 68 scientific publications that covered various social and socio-economic topics for different life cycle stages of vehicles and related supply chains. These publications addressed two scales: micro level covering different technologies, materials, and components such as battery and powertrain production (Leurent and Windisch 2015;Noel et al 2018;Onat et al 2016;Lopez-Arboleda et al 2019;Smaragdakis et al 2020;Patil and Khairnar 2021;Omahne et al 2021) and macro level addressing global social impacts of market electrification, policies, and other sectors that are related to transport (Azapagic 2004;Zhang et al 2015;Kamenopoulos et al 2016;Litmanen et al 2016;Zimmer et al 2017;Mancini and Sala 2018;Orozco 2018;Pastor et al 2018;Schlör et al 2018;Zambrano-Gutiérrez et al 2018;Aznar-Sánchez et al 2019). In addition, we have collected a total number of 155 official reports from the International Labor Office (ILO), OECD, World Bank, and the JRC reports.…”

Investigation on Mechanical Behaviour of Fiber-Reinforced Advanced Polymer Composite Materials

“…Composites have several uses in the automotive and marine sectors. Excellent corrosion resistance, as well as high stiffness-to-weight ratios, all contribute to the robustness and creep resistance of these applications [2][3][4][5] . Asia's developing countries are currently dealing with problems including growing urbanisation and the need for more secure and opulent travel in order to maintain a normal way of living by introducing composite materials 6) .…”