Citation

Tasic I, Elvik R, Brewer S. Accid. Anal. Prev. 2017; 109: 36-46.

Affiliation

University of Utah, Department of Geography, 260 S. Central Campus Drive, Salt Lake City, 84112 UT, United States.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.aap.2017.07.029

PMID

29028551

Abstract

A "Safety in Numbers" effect for a certain group of road users is present if the number of crashes increases at a lower rate than the number of road users. The existence of this effect has been invoked to justify investments in multimodal transportation improvements in order to create more sustainable urban transportation systems by encouraging walking, biking, and transit ridership. The goal of this paper is to explore safety in numbers effect for cyclists and pedestrians in areas with different levels of access to multimodal infrastructure. Data from Chicago served to estimate the expected number of crashes on the census tract level by applying Generalized Additive Models (GAM) to capture spatial dependence in crash data. Measures of trip generation, multimodal infrastructure, network connectivity and completeness, and accessibility were used to model travel exposure in terms of activity, number of trips, trip length, travel opportunities, and conflicts. The results show that a safety in numbers effect exists on a macroscopic level for motor vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Multimodal transportation; Safety in numbers; Urban context; Vulnerable road users