São Paulo, Brazil

In 2014, São Paulo had a 15.4 traffic fatality rate per 100,000 people, more than Argentina (12.6) and Mexico (14.7). To reduce fatalities, TSR served as an active advisor to Vida dê Preferência: Movimento Paulista de Segurança no Trânsito (MPST) in creating, implementing, and evaluating the State Action Plan for road safety in 64 cities, including a data and mapping system for timely reporting. As a result of this work, we achieved a 13% reduction in fatalities between 2015 and 2017.

Shanghai, China

In Shanghai, we facilitated multi-sector partnerships to improve road safety and as a result, reduced fatalities on intervening roads by 90%. Risky driving behaviors were reduced by 30% through their behavior-based commercial driver safety analysis and education.

Atlanta, GA

In 2014, the crash rate on Atlanta’s North Avenue was more than 200% higher than the statewide average for similar corridors. To determine the best solutions to reduce the crash rate and ultimately save lives, TSR analyzed hyper-local root causes of collision risk and created predictive models to forecast elevated risk levels. This analysis was based on data sources from the City of Atlanta’s publicly available data and member companies’ private data.

New York City, NY

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, the Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program is a national effort to deploy, test, and operationalize cutting-edge mobile and roadside technologies and enable multiple connected vehicle applications. In 2016, New York City was selected to participate in the program and Together for Safer Roads, partnering with its member Anheuser-Busch (AB), worked to equip NYC AB based fleet vehicles with connected vehicle technology to test driver alert and other safety measures aimed at reducing crash frequency and severity, managing vehicle speeds, and evaluating  the benefits of deploying connected vehicle technology in a dense urban environment with frequent interactions among the participating vehicles.

Bellevue, WA

Investments in road safety and design are increasingly benefiting from innovative data collection and analytic tools. In a first-of-its-kind near miss study conducted in Bellevue, WA, 360-degree, high-definition traffic cameras revealed important analytics about drivers, such as the fact that 50% of drivers drove 11 or more miles per hour over the speed limit. Data like this allows governments and companies to create safer road policies, and predict future transportation risks.

The project used data supplied from the city’s network of 360-degree, high-definition traffic cameras at 40 selected intersections, gathering 5,000 hours of footage, recording 8.25 million road user observations and 20,000 critical conflict interactions.

Since project analysis, Bellevue funded numerous safety countermeasures, including radar feedback signs, pedestrian crossings, left turn pockets, restricted turn movements, medians, and more with the long-term goal of proactively eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries.

Houston, TX

Hillcroft Avenue is a main thoroughfare in Houston’s Gulfton neighborhood. It featured a crash rate twice the state average compared to similar urban roadways – often involving vehicles colliding with pedestrians and cyclists with severe or fatal results. Together for Safer Roads partnered with the City of Houston and a broad cross-section of local stakeholders – Connect Community, Houston Planning and Development and Public Works departments, DKS Associates, Anheuser-Busch, Transoft Solutions, and TEI Planning + Design – to redesign Hillcroft Avenue into a safer and more accessible roadway.

This groundbreaking project not only highlighted the benefits of operating within a public-private partnership model, especially when approaching complex road safety issues, but also the important and critical use of technology – specifically an innovative, quick action before-and-after study to provide early indication of the impact of the Hillcroft Avenue projects and strategies. Using video analytics to identify road user speeds, trajectories, and conflicts, the study team was able to quantify – just a few weeks after completion – safety-related benefits of the project, especially for people walking and biking.

One outcome of the roadway redesign has been a reduction in motor vehicle speed of 5 to 10 MPH. This has a significant effect on injury outcomes, should a collision occur, especially if pedestrians and cyclists are involved. The reduced speeds mean improvements to crash severity as well as overall decrease in crashes on Hillcroft Avenue. Additionally, pedestrians crossing at the designated crosswalks and intersections has improved following completion of the project. Excitedly, our work has now helped Houston secure new federal funding to expand upon and create new road safety projects.

Hillcroft Avenue is an excellent and instructive example of how positive change can occur on our roads through public-private partnerships and the effective use of video analytics; a model for other cities working on road safety initiatives.