Using data to improve pedestrian & cyclist safety for Vision Zero

How do I make cycling and walking safer in my city?

To enhance bicycle and pedestrian safety, the first step is to capture traffic volumes on a reliable, consistent basis. This way, you can observe how traffic evolves, month after month and year after year.

From there, you can learn important information about your network. For example, are some facilities more popular than others? If so, which ones? Are more people walking and cycling than expected? How fast are these practices growing? This "big picture" of your traffic numbers lets you compare with other key figures like total collisions to improve overall safety in a strategic, data-justified way.

A solid database can give you greater insights about your network. For example, counting active transportation users can tell you which roads are busiest. But, if you look a little deeper, you can identify routes where traffic is lower than expected, a sign that a facility is perceived as unsafe.

Additionally, you can cross-reference count data and GPS data with tools like Cycling Insights. These solutions provide valuable figures such as sudden braking rates, a clear indicator of danger levels at an intersection.

At key intersections, using a counting solution means that you can be confident your data represents the ground truth (in other words, what's truly happening). With tools like the CITIX-AI ^Evo camera-based solution, you can collect easily interpretable, granular data over a large area on multiple user types at once.

From there, you can look at elements like trajectories, speeds, and conflicts of use to measure real-time safety. You can even measure exposure to risk with AI features like counting "near-misses."