Curb Management Practices and Effectiveness in Improving Safety (05-096)

Project Description: The research team worked with staff from the Transportation Department at the City of Roanoke to gather to select a primary data collection location for curbside zone activity and safety-related actions by vehicles and active travelers over a one-week period. Ultimately, the research team and city staff selected a curbside pick-up location with two loading spaces on Campbell Ave in Roanoke, Virginia due to its proximity to local dining and market establishments and relatively high daily traffic volumes. The research team placed cameras roughly ten to eleven feet above the roadway on nearby street light posts with powered outlets, pointing in the chosen site's direction. Site recording occurred using cameras for seven days to see what traffic and usage of the curbside pick-up location happen in a typical week. The video recording first occurred on June 14-15, 2022, before cameras needed to be repositioned to use electrical outlet power; recording resumed from June 22-28, 2022 to complete video collection over a seven-day period. Once the recording was completed, the research team retrieved the cameras from the sites and saved the footage to a secure server. Using the data coding designed for this study, the footage was saved for data collection. The data coding for vehicles consisted of recording the time a vehicle entered and exited the zone, the location within the zone, the type of vehicle, the vehicle's purpose of using the zone, and what events and/or conflicts may have occurred to or by that vehicle. Other coding focuses consisted of pedestrians and groups of people who crossed in the zone from either side of the road, vehicles performing unusual or potentially illegal maneuvers in the road near the zone. In addition, any bikes, scooters, or other non-motorized mobility devices may have violated a city ordinance by riding on the sidewalk or driving the wrong way on the roadway were recorded. Data Scope: The data scope resulting from the coding method by the research team focuses on potential safety conflicts between different types of travel modes (vehicles or pedestrians) while recording the times of vehicles utilizing the curbside spaces. The data set has three broad topic categories for vehicles/travelers, zone, and street information; then data categories and terms were developed within each broad topic category. In total, 1038 vehicle or active traveler observations were recorded from a one-week period (consisting of observations captured from June 14-15 and June 22-28, 2022). No personally identifiable information is recorded in the dataset. Data Specification: Please see Data Specification document below.