The Role of Urban Form and Demographics in Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety

One of the core objectives of the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) is to ensure safety for road users, including pedestrians and bicyclists. It is important to understand the differences in safety of such users in different contexts. This study uses data at the census tract level aimed to address transportation safety issues in different contexts characterized by comprehensive indicators of burdens that include the economy, environment, health, weather, and transportation. A fundamental research question to be answered is whether the indicators, urban form (e.g., density, land use mix, alternative mode infrastructure), and demographics are correlated with higher levels of pedestrian and bicyclist crashes at the national and regional levels. When analyzing pedestrian and bicycle safety, the study will investigate the extent of differences regarding transportation safety and the presence of spatial heterogeneity and explore the safe systems interventions to effectively address vulnerable road user safety. The study will create a unique large-scale dataset by combining ten years of fatal crash data with demographic information and indicators for the 72,000-plus census tracts in the US. The data will be analyzed using descriptives to understand data characteristics and distributions, time-series analysis to examine pedestrian and bicycle fatalities over time, and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) to account for the spatial variations in relationships and enable insights into the spatially varying correlates of safety outcomes.

Language

  • English

Project

  • Status: Completed
  • Funding: $120599
  • Contract Numbers:

    69A3552348336

  • Sponsor Organizations:

    Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

    University Transportation Centers Program
    Department of Transportation
    Washington, DC  United States  20590
  • Managing Organizations:

    Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety

    University of New Mexico
    Albuquerque, NM  United States  87131
  • Project Managers:

    Melendrez, Carman

    Stearns, Amy

  • Performing Organizations:

    University of Tennessee, Knoxville

    Center for Transportation Research (CTR)
    Knoxville, TN  United States  37996
  • Principal Investigators:

    Khattak, Asad

    Rodriguez, Daniel

    Cherry, Christopher

  • Start Date: 20230601
  • Expected Completion Date: 20240531
  • Actual Completion Date: 0
  • USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01890197
  • Record Type: Research project
  • Source Agency: Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety
  • Contract Numbers: 69A3552348336
  • Files: UTC, RIP
  • Created Date: Aug 17 2023 5:01PM