Exploring Street Noise and Bicycle Safety: Initial Evidence from Austin, TX and the Washington, DC Capital Area

Studies show the relationship of many environmental factors with the safety of bicycle transportation, including street infrastructure, urban densities, safety-in-numbers, and others. However, no work to date includes the relationship of street-level noise with the safety of vulnerable road users. This study deploys bicycle-mounted smartphones with apps recording noise in A-weighted decibels with GPS points to explore this issue for the first time in Austin, Texas, and the Washington, DC Capital Area. The initial exploration of results shows inconsistent results between the cities, with no direct relationship between street noise and exposure-normalized crash rates. However, when considering infrastructure and nearby bicycle commute share rates with street noise, the model in the Washington, DC Capital Area explained over 87% of the variation in crash risk. This approach to street noise data collection invites other explorations of the relationship of street noise to vulnerable road safety to improve future guidance for transportation planning and engineering.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF20 Standing Committee on Bicycle Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Griffin, Greg P
  • Hankey, Steven
  • Buehler, Ralph
  • Dai, Boya
  • Le, Huyen T K
  • Simek, Chris
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 15p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycle facilities; Bicycling; Safety; Sound level; Traffic noise; Vulnerable road users
• Geographic Terms: Austin (Texas); Washington (District of Columbia)
• Subject Areas: Environment; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01697849
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-03944
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 1 2019 3:51PM