A capstone project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Engineering Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology

Capstone Project (B.Sc.)-Asian Institute of Technology, 2017

Motorcycle has become a widely used private transport mode in Sri Lanka. Affordability of the prices and higher mobility through congested traffic are some reasons for its continued popularity. Motorcycle are the most contributed vehicle for traffic accidents and as revealed by some previous researchers, red light running is one of the risky behaviors of motorcyclists that cause road accidents. Moreover, red light running behaviors of motorcyclists has been found to be a one main cause of road accidents. This research was carried out to identify the specificities of red light running behavior of motorcycle riders in Colombo city, Sri Lanka. Data collection for the research was mainly through a questionnaire based survey. It was designed according to key parameters identified from literature on the subject matter. A total of 300 respondents questioned for data collection. The respondents were randomly picked motorcycle riders met in Colombo city. Spearman correlations, Mann Whitney-U test and Kruskal Wallis-H test were used as analytical techniques and indicators. Post hoc test was conducted for the Kruskal-Wallis H test. Categorized factor analysis was conducted under traffic circumstance, psychosomatic behaviors and time pressure to identify the red light running behaviors of Motorcyclists. Separate analysis was carried out for red light violation and yellow light violation because yellow light violation is the prelude to red light violation. The analysis revealed that young male riders have more tendency to run through red light. Moreover, less educated people were found to be red light violators than educated people. The risk taking nature of riders was found to have an association with red light running. The analysis revealed that, possession of a driving license has no impact on the traffic light running behavior of motorcyclists. The analysis further revealed that full face helmet users and manual transmission motorcycle riders have more tendency to run through the red/yellow light. Chi-square test also carried out to support this idea. However, the findings related to the red light violations and yellow light violations were almost similar. These findings help to identifying the type of violators and their red light behaviors towards framing corrective measures.