Crash Risk, Crash Exposure, and the Built Environment: A Conceptual Review

This paper reviews the literature on the relationship between the built environment and roadway safety, with a focus on studies that analyze small geographical units, such as census tracts or travel analysis zones. The authors review different types of built environment measures to analyze if there are consistent relationships between such measures and crash frequency, finding that for many built environment variables there are mixed or contradictory correlations. The authors turn to the treatment of exposure, because built environment measures are often used, either explicitly or implicitly, as measures of exposure. The authors find that because exposure is often not adequately controlled for, correlations between built environment features and crash rates could be due to either higher levels of exposure or higher rates of crash risk per unit of exposure. Then, the authors identify various built environment variables as either more related to exposure, more related to risk, or ambiguous, and recommend further targeted research on those variables whose relationship is currently ambiguous.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2019.07.020
• Record URL:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751930452X
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00014575
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Merlin, Louis A
  • Guerra, Erick
  • Dumbaugh, Eric
• Publication Date: 2020-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Serial:
  • Accident Analysis & Prevention
  • Volume: 134
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0001-4575
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00014575

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Built environment; Crash data; Crash rates; Highway safety; Risk assessment; Traffic analysis zones; Travel behavior
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01715120
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 28 2019 5:16PM