Performance Measures for Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety: Challenges in Monitoring Traffic and Assessing Exposure to Risk

September 25, 2014

About the Presentation

Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), the federal law that governs U.S. transportation systems, requires state departments of transportation to integrate indicators of performance into system management and establish performance measures for assessing progress towards system goals. Research priorities established by MAP-21 include traffic operational safety and identify bicyclists and pedestrians as high-risk road users.

This presentation summarized challenges in monitoring and modeling bicycle and pedestrian traffic volumes, reviewed challenges in measuring exposure to risk, and outlined a research project designed to estimate performance measures for bicycle and pedestrian safety. As part of this study, researchers will collaborate with state and local agencies to deploy commercially available monitoring technologies and collect and analyze bicycle and pedestrian traffic data. The project will develop factoring and regression-based approaches for estimating traffic volumes. Case studies in large and small communities will be completed to illustrate how these data can inform assessments of exposure to risk. The data and tools generated through this project will help agencies establish performance measures for bicycle and pedestrian traffic and will inform future research related to quantification of risk and crash rates.

Webcast

About the Speaker

Greg Lindsey specializes in environmental planning, policy, and management. His current research involves nonmotorized transportation systems, including bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and studies of relationships between the built environment and active transportation and physical activity.