Creating a CSCRS clearinghouse for bicyclist and pedestrian safety-related data, Phase 1: Inventory framework [R14]

In 2017, 5,977 pedestrians and 783 bicyclists died on roads in the United States. While total traffic fatalities in the United States other than pedestrians and bicyclists fatalities have declined by 6% over the decade (2008-2017), pedestrian and bicyclists fatalities have increased by 32%. In 2017, when pedestrian and bicyclist deaths accounted for 18% of the total traffic fatalities in the United States, they only accounted for approximately 3% of commuters. Despite these concerning trends, pedestrian and bicycle safety treatments are consistently underfunded, especially in low-income neighborhoods. Although pedestrian and bicycle fatalities comprise a significant portion of the annual total, any severity of pedestrian and bicycle collisions can be widely dispersed events throughout a network. Confounding this problem is a lack of consistent, centralized data to enable collision prediction. For example, although many cities and local jurisdictions throughout the country have gathered pedestrian and bicycle counts for years, these data are often problematic and not easily accessible. Even when available, collision data for non-fatal crashes is not available in a nationwide database, and even for a single agency, sources can differ, making comparison between jurisdictions more widely difficult. Therefore, predicting vulnerable road user collisions and determining appropriate countermeasures can be unduly difficult for traffic safety professionals. To address the data shortcomings, the National Pedestrian and Bicycle Data Clearinghouse has been developed to improve data for pedestrian and bicycle analyses in the United States. The goal for this Clearinghouse is to serve as a central, consistent, and open data source for traffic safety professionals to access for planning and safety analysis purposes. The current phase of this project, as described in this report, entails defining the scope of the Clearinghouse, cataloguing available datasets, and building a rudimentary framework for data hosting and acquisition.

2017年，美国道路上共有5977名行人与783名自行车骑行者丧生。2008至2017年的十年间，美国除行人和自行车骑行者外的其他交通死亡人数累计下降6%，但行人和自行车骑行者的死亡人数却上升了32%。2017年，行人和自行车骑行者的死亡人数占美国交通总死亡人数的18%，而其通勤出行占比仅约3%。尽管上述趋势令人担忧，但行人与自行车安全防护措施始终资金不足，在低收入社区这一问题尤为突出。虽然行人和自行车死亡事故在年度总事故中占比可观，但任何严重程度的行人和自行车碰撞事故都可能在道路交通网中广泛分散发生。而该问题的一大阻碍是缺乏统一、集中的数据以支持碰撞预测工作。例如，尽管美国国内众多城市与地方管辖区多年来持续收集行人和自行车流量数据，但这类数据往往存在瑕疵且难以获取。即便数据可用，全国性数据库中也未收录非致命碰撞事故的相关信息；即便在单个机构内部，不同数据源之间也可能存在差异，这进一步加大了不同管辖区间的数据对比难度。因此，交通安全专业人员要预测弱势道路使用者（vulnerable road user）的碰撞事故并制定恰当的应对措施，往往会面临额外的困难。为解决上述数据短板问题，美国已开发全国行人与自行车数据交换所（National Pedestrian and Bicycle Data Clearinghouse），用于优化美国行人与自行车安全分析所用的数据资源。该交换所的目标是成为一个集中、统一且开放的数据来源，供交通安全专业人员开展规划与安全分析工作时使用。如本报告所述，本项目当前阶段的工作包括明确该交换所的服务范围、梳理现有可用数据集，以及搭建用于数据托管与获取的基础框架。