DATA COLLECTION

Vision Zero is a data driven approach making data collection vital to this process. In nearly all cases where change is reactive, data is used to support the changes based on this information and patterns identified by using that data. The same should be done for communities looking to be proactive in their approaches to prevent collisions. For this to be accomplished to the best of a community’s ability, data must be recorded frequently and accurately through the help of the local government, police, and the public.

This is an effort that should be completed through the communities elected officials, community departments, and community partnerships. Creating ways that make it easier to collect this information and analyze it will make defending those proactive choices easier. Each of these groups has a role to play when it comes to recording information accurately:

/ Some cities across the nation have set up an online portal with an interactive map to report near-misses and crashes. This helps to report information in real time without the fear of making an unwarranted 911 call.

/ DOT’s, MPO’s, and local health partners are working with law enforcement to enhance police accident reports for crashes. Currently, misinformation comes from reports with missing information that either has been omitted or is not accurate based on the actual situation. Currently, the IMPO has been working to clean up central data from 2015-2018. The have produced maps and a dashboard called the Central Indiana Incapacitated & Fatality Crash Dashboard which can be found here.1

/ The public knows the community the best. It is next to impossible for elected officials and police officers to know where the worst intersections or stretches of road are unless there are continual crashes happening. Near-miss incidents are almost never reported to authorities and there is a huge misrepresentation of what happens in the streets of lowincome or minority areas. It is critical that elected officials, department staff, public health officials, and law enforcement build trust within neighborhoods and communities to talk with the public about the transportation system and the streets, intersections, and crossings that might not be the main roads used for primary travel that are unsafe. This allows for site specific changes to be identified and additional funding to be allocated towards infrastructure improvements and increase the quality of life for that area.

Interactive Mapping

A study done by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed that police often underreport bike or pedestrian issues and, unfortunately, found underrepresentation of statistics involving people of color. Sometimes, hospital data is more accurate in understanding the real numbers because they were not captured and recorded in police data. Collision data is often skewed by a hesitancy to report incidents. Near misses or other incidents for fear of making an unwarranted 911 call are usually not reported. Hospital records are another source of information for recording where, how, and what kind of crash/collision happened, especially for pedestrian and bicycle related collisions.

In response to this, a number of cities have asked residents for help and to share their insights and observations for road safety through crowdsourced maps. These maps work to fill the gaps in city and community traffic data not recorded by leveraging community knowledge through easy to use and anonymous tools. These interactive maps allow anyone to report a crash, accident or problematic issue/ near-miss and have that data recorded, uploaded to the internet, and for public record. Indianapolis has an interactive map that is updated by the MPO and has crash data from 2015 – 2018 recorded based on the definition of what an “incapacitating injury” is.

The MPO hired The Corradino Group to correct the location of the Automated Reporting Information Exchange System (ARIES) for the incapacitating and fatal crash records. This was done by going through police reports and making sure that the location described in the police report was the same as the point on the map. Over 15,000 of these records have been corrected, and data from 2012-2018 was available. Due to the change in definition of “incapacitating injury,” data from 2012 – 2014 was remove from the crash data site, or dashboard, but the information can still be obtained upon request. Although this map is interactive, users cannot submit their own data or information using this specific dashboard.

To visit the dashboard, which records data from across eight counties, please click here.

How To Collect Data

The Harvard Kennedy School published an article describing data collection and programs that worked towards helping to predict changes both in efforts for finding crash patterns before they happened and working to change the roadway before and analyzing the changes and potential crash risk if a certain change in the roadway were to be made.

There are multiple ways of collecting data from analyzing traffic patterns and existing crash data to look for patterns where crashes are more likely to occur, to conducting walk audits to evaluate all transportation and infrastructure conditions along a specific path. Multiple resources exist to help teach these tactics whether it be a community-led event or city or town-wide initiative.

A few ways to collect data are:

/ Recording the collision location on a map based on police and hospital reports

/ Interactive mapping for the public

/ Completing walk audits

/ Analysis of videos using traffic cameras or simulated videos

/ Data analysis of past collision data to identify patterns and where they are occurring/most likely to occur

/ Analysis of driver behavior through studies and social experiments

/ Analysis of pedestrian and bicyclist behavior through studies and social experiments

Read the full Harvard Kennedy School here.

SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS & PROGRAMS

Boston launched a driver competition which ran from fall of 2016 to early 2017 in an effort to understand and collect driver behavior and information. Human error is responsible for around 90 percent of traffic crashes. This competition was accessible to anyone with a smart phone and was a free mobile application that anyone could download. It was developed through a partnership between Boston’s Vision Zero Task Force, the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, and Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a data sensing company, that provided drivers with feedback based on acceleration, braking, cornering, and phone distraction. Each week, the app scored the drivers on a sale of 0-100 and the city gave prizes to the stop drivers, most improved, new app users, and people who took car-free trips, and finally awarded a grand prize at the end of the competition.

The competition had a huge impact on driver behavior; of the 1,100 people who participated, their phone distraction dropped by 47 percent and speeding decreased by 35 percent. If these statistics could be achieved throughout a whole city, the chances of collisions could be significantly reduced.

San Francisco built upon this concept, offering a tool that uses sensors in smartphones to capture and analyze information on driver habits. It can sense when a driver brakes, accelerates abruptly, how fast a driver is going at any moment, whether they are driving aggressively or distractedly, and even when they have recently stopped at a bar. The tool can be used to coach drivers on how they can drive more safely.

While these social experiments may not be the most practical approach in all communities, studies and analysis of the data may still be representative of similar behavioral traits of drivers in smaller communities.

Benchmarking

Setting benchmarks in a community is important as it relates to understanding data and determining if strategies have worked. Benchmarking is creating a goal to achieve within a set time frame and being able to measure that goal. These benchmarks should be set for different intervals depending on the time frame of your goal. It is important to remember that monitoring these goals is vital throughout this process as well – known as benchmarking.

Benchmarking is the logical next step to measure how effective strategies are working. This can be accomplished through the analysis of data from year to year, to identify patterns of where strategies are effective and accomplished state goals, others do not, or where unintended results occur based on those changes. Benchmarking allows a community to take a pilot project or implementation of a strategy in a small area and identify other places in the community where similar or the same project or strategy can be implemented to achieve the same outcome.

Benchmarking results should be accessible to the public. Through this benchmarking, and sharing of data and results, communities with similar issues can use this information to help them determine if certain solutions will work in their community.

HOW DO YOU MEASURE BENCHMARKS?

Benchmarking can completed many different ways; using paper, machines, hand held devices, website, etc. The device chosen should be the most accurate and easiest to keep track of the goals. Some communities might choose to analyze data monthly, others on a semi-annual basis, and others might only be once annually. San Francisco uses a spreadsheet to record all incidents https://data.sfgov.org/City-Management-and-Ethics/ScorecardMeasures/kc49-udxn. A score card was used in this situation and updated as frequently as necessary with data. Other communities may use the overall data to see if they’re reaching goals set in their plans. All of this benchmarked data is analyzed and summarized into a progress report.

The Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition releases Vision Zero Progress Reports which assesses the City of Boston’s implementation strategies and the results. These are yearly reports which include score cards which evaluates how well the goals are being met through a graphic summary.

Click here to view the City of Boston’s Progress Reports:

/ 2016 progress report

/ 2017 progress report

/ 2018 progress report

Other cities and communities have begun committed to Vision Zero after seeing progress reports that prove that these changes can help increase public safety and safer driving conditions. Many places have used these progress reports to explain how their efforts are working towards the overall goals set within a plan. While these plans may be Vision Zero Action Plans with an ultimate goal of reaching zero traffic fatalities and series injuries, some are working towards the overall reduction by a percentage.

Whether a community wants to strive for zero traffic related fatalities or injuries and become a Vision Zero recognized community, progress reports can show the progress a community is making and if it is heading in the right direction.

Another example is to the right. Boston’s progress reports are more graphic in nature to identify which initiatives are being worked on, are making progress, and what needs improvement.

New York City uses a spreadsheet to detail the same information and to keep track of what initiatives have been started, are in progress, or have not been started. An example of a scorecard might look something similar to what New York City has done to benchmark their progress. The link to their scorecard is here.

Scorecards can be tailored based on the community or based on modal data for vehicles, bicycles, or pedestrians. There is no formal way to organize these scorecards and measure a communities goals. As long as a community records data and information accurately, determining if the strategies and solutions being deployed should be easier to assess.

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