The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an independent research organization based here in our province dedicated to developing innovative and practical solutions to transportation problems. They regularly make research papers available to the public and here are the most interesting from their last newsletter:
Macrolevel Collision Prediction Models to Evaluate Road Safety Effects of Mobility Management Strategies: New Empirical Tools to Promote Sustainable Development at www.vtpi.org/lovegrove_litman.pdf This paper describes how community-based collision prediction models can be used to calculate the road safety effects of specific mobility management strategies. It summarizes analysis of data from 479 urban neighbourhoods. The results suggest that smart growth, congestion pricing and improved mobility options (better walking and cycling conditions, and improved ridesharing and public transit services) can provide significant crash reductions.
Safe Travels: Evaluating Mobility Management Traffic Safety Impacts at www.vtpi.org/safetrav.pdf This paper investigates the relationships between mobility (the amount people travel) and crash risk, and the traffic safety impacts of mobility management strategies that change travel patterns to increase transportation system efficiency. Although many factors affect traffic crash rates, evidence summarized in this paper indicates that all else being equal, per capita traffic crash rates increase with per capita vehicle travel, and that mobility management strategies tend to provide safety benefits. Strategies that reduce per capita vehicle travel tend to reduce overall crash risk. Mode shifting tends to reduce per capita crash rates by reducing risk per mile and total mileage. Shifting vehicle travel from more- to less-congested conditions tends to reduce crash frequency but may increase crash severity due to higher traffic speeds. Smart growth land use policies tend to reduce crash severity and fatality rates, although crash frequency may increase due to increased traffic density. Strategies that reduce traffic speeds provide significant safety benefits. Conventional traffic risk analysis tends to understate the safety impacts of changes in mileage. This analysis indicates that mobility management is a cost effective traffic safety strategy, and increased safety is one of the largest benefits of mobility management.
Safety Evaluation, Online TDM Encyclopedia, Victoria Transport Policy Institute at www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm58.htm This chapter describes how road risk is measured, and how to evaluate the safety and health impacts of different TDM strategies.
To learn more visit the VTPI web site.
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