01628175

Component

Estimating exposure to risk and assessing crash risk is necessary to understand and prevent crashes and injuries. However, transportation planners and engineers historically have lacked information about bicycle demand or traffic volumes needed to identify vulnerable locations for bicyclists and evaluate the effectiveness of safety improvement programs. The authors use peak hour counts of bicycle traffic at 473 locations in Minneapolis and facility demand models estimated from those counts to characterize exposure to risk on the street network in Minneapolis. The authors aggregate bicycle crashes from 2005 to 2010, estimate crash rates, and test the “safety in numbers” hypothesis that the crash risk for each individual bicyclist will decrease with increasing bicycle traffic. The authors then use Firth logistic regression to estimate the probability of crashes at intersections and on street segments and assess the effects of built environment variables on the probability of bicycle crashes. The authors confirm the safety in numbers hypothesis with both counts and modeled estimates of demand. Controlling for exposure to risk, the authors show that the probability of crashes is higher along street segments with higher land use mix and commercial use and at intersections with higher job accessibility. Bicycle crashes are more likely to occur at intersections with trail crossings. However, street connectivity, measured by intersection density has a negative association with the probability of crashes at intersections. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications for bicycling safety and facility improvements.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB20 Standing Committee on Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation.

01618707

17-06180

English

16p

2017

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Maps; References (36) ; Tables

Bicycle crashes; Built environment; Crash characteristics; Risk assessment; Traffic volume

Minneapolis (Minnesota)

Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-06180

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 12:30PM