01556853

Component

Crashes are not equally distributed across different communities or different socioeconomic groups. For example, more socioeconomically deprived areas experienced more traffic crashes. Several possible reasons were identified in previous studies, including the possibility of lower household vehicle ownership in low income areas (which in turn generate more pedestrian activities and lead to more conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles), insufficient non-motorized infrastructure in low income areas (which increase the danger for pedestrians), and higher traffic volumes in areas with more non-white populations. Moreover, most studies on disparity issues primarily focused on pedestrian injuries. Current evidence regarding disparities in crashes with different levels of injury severity is still limited. Further, possible moderator effects of socio-demographic characteristics on built environment–traffic safety relationships are unclear. This study explored differences in crash frequency across neighborhoods with different economic statuses and ethnic compositions, and further tested the potential moderator effect of socio-demographic characteristics on the built environment–traffic safety association. The results revealed that some built environmental variables (e.g., arterial roads, office uses, and schools) showed significant impacts on traffic safety only in areas with high percentages of non-white population and population below the poverty line and not in low-percentage areas. This suggested that policies and programs related to these built environmental attributes in promoting traffic safety may bring more benefits to areas with more non-white or lower-income populations. Tailored traffic safety strategies are need for areas with more non-white and low-income people.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB10 Transportation Safety Management.

01550057

15-4414

English

19p

2015

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Web

Figures; References (31) ; Tables

Crash characteristics; Demographics; Ethnic groups; Infrastructure; Injury severity; Neighborhoods; Pedestrians; Residential areas; Socioeconomic factors; Traffic safety

Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I81: Accident Statistics

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-4414

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 30 2014 1:27PM