Background Pedestrians in rural areas live along the high-speed roads in low-and-middle-income countries and are exposed to high-speed traffic. Their exposure to the risk on different types of rural roads remains unexplored, which is important to understand as it has implications in road design.

Objective To estimate the population living within a 250 m buffer on each side of different rural roads in Haryana. To assess pedestrian fatality rate per 10,000 population along these rural roads.

Methods Police FIRs with pedestrian fatalities in Haryana from 2017 to 2019 are geocoded in ArcGIS to create a state-wide pedestrian fatality distribution. A road network is prepared comprising all the National Highways (NH), State Highways (SH), and Major District Roads (MDR), excluding the length of roads in the urban area limits based on the Census of India, to get the high-speed roads only in rural areas. Population data is derived from high-resolution density maps provided by Meta and Columbia University’s - CIESIN. The population growth of a country is collected and modelled at different levels. Using algorithms trained on satellite imagery, building density in 30x30 m grid census areas is assessed, and the population is distributed based on building density, creating a population density map. This map is further utilised to determine the total population along all roads. This population is then used to estimate the pedestrian fatality risk on different roads in Haryana.

Results The pedestrian fatality rate per 10,000 population varies with road categories. It can get as high as 40.1 (NH 48) for NHs, 13.6 (SH 22) for SHs, and 11.4 (MDR 132) for MDRs. Further analysis shows that the population in a total buffer of 500 m along MDR 132 is 1.75 times while that along SH 22 is 1.25 times the population along NH 48.

Conclusions Despite a higher population along MDRs, the fatality rate on NHs surpasses that of MDRs, indicating a greater pedestrian fatality rate along NHs. This highlights the heightened risk of pedestrians on NHs, emphasising the necessity for detailed research and urgent attention from governmental authorities to address this situation.