Safety in Numbers: Pedestrian and Bicyclist Activity and Safety in Minneapolis
Recent Report:
Carlson, Kristin; Murphy, Brendan; Ermagun, Alireza; Levinson, David; Owen, Andrew. (2018). Safety in Numbers: Pedestrian and Bicyclist Activity and Safety in Minneapolis. Center for Transportation Studies, University of Minnesota. Series/Report Number CTS 18-05. Retrieved from the University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy,
Abstract
This investigation aims to evaluate whether the Safety in Numbers phenomenon is observable in the midwestern U.S. city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Safety in Numbers (SIN) refers to the phenomenon that pedestrian safety is positively correlated with increased pedestrian traffic in a given area. Walking and bicycling are increasingly becoming important transportation modes in modern cities. Proper placement of non-motorized facilities and improvements has implications for safety, accessibility, and mode choice, but proper information regarding estimated non-motorized traffic levels is needed to locate areas where investments can have the greatest impact. Assessment of collision risk between automobiles and non-motorized travelers offers a tool that can help inform investments to improve non-motorized traveler safety. Models of non-motorized crash risk typically require detailed historical multimodal crash and traffic volume data, but many cities do not have dense datasets of non-motorized transport flow levels. Methods of estimating pedestrian and bicycle behavior that do not rely heavily on high-resolution count data are applied in this study. Pedestrian and cyclist traffic counts, average automobile traffic, and crash data from the city of Minneapolis are used to build models of crash frequencies at the intersection level as a function of modal traffic inputs. These models determine whether the SIN effect is observable within the available datasets for pedestrians, cyclists, and cars, as well as determine specific locations within Minneapolis where non-motorized travelers experience elevated levels of risk of crashes with automobiles.
Recent publications from this report include:
Murphy, Brendan, David M. Levinson, and Andrew Owen (2017) Evaluating the Safety In Numbers effect for pedestrians at urban intersections. Accident Analysis & Prevention Volume 106, September 2017, Pages 181–190. [doi]
Carlson, Kristin, Murphy, Brendan, Owen, Andrew, Ermagun, Alireza, and Levinson, D. (2018) Safety in Numbers and Safety in Congestion for Bicyclists and Motorists at Urban Intersections (*) (Working Paper).
Murphy, B., D. Levinson, and A. Owen (2016) Accessibility and Centrality Based Estimation of Urban Pedestrian Activity. Presented at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016.