Motorized Vehicle Safety

Documenting Targeted Behaviors Associated with Pedestrian Safety

Cooper, Jill F.
Schneider, Robert J.
Ryan, Sherry
Co, Sean
2013

The purpose of this study is to provide an exploratory analysis of the proportion of pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers exhibiting four specific behaviors at 12 intersections near transit stations in 4 the San Francisco Bay Area. The target behaviors include: 1) pedestrians crossing the roadway while using a mobile device, such as a cell phone, 2) pedestrians crossing a signalized intersection against a red light, 3) bicyclists running a red light at a signalized intersection, and 4) automobiles turning right on red without stopping. These four behaviors are important because they...

Low Cost Upgrades to At-Grade Crossing Safety Devices

Cooper, Douglas L.
Ragland, David R.
Felschundneff, Grace
2012

The only way to absolutely prevent all drivers from going around lowered gates at level rail-highway crossings is to make it physically impossible, or at least very difficult, for them to do so. While there are various options to accomplish this (constructing a separation of grade, closing the crossing, or deploying an impenetrable concrete barrier), most have high monetary or social costs. Alternative approaches—such as channelization devices and long-arm gates—while not 100 percent effective, can be used to prevent deaths and injuries while remaining economically feasible. Research...

Evaluation of the Safe Routes to Transit Program in California

Weinzimmer, David
Sanders, Rebecca L.
Dittrich, Heidi
Cooper, Jill F.
2014

This paper elaborates on findings from an evaluation of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Safe Routes to Transit (SR2T) program, which funded enhancements to increase walking and cycling to regional transit stations. To understand how the program influenced travel choices, behavior, and perceptions of safety and local air quality, researchers surveyed transit users and observed driver, pedestrian, and bicyclist behavior in the periods before and after the enhancements were made at multiple transit stations. Data from the treatment and control stations suggest that the streetscape and...

The Analysis of Right-of-way for different road users in China: Passing-Passenger-Unit Versus Passenger-Car-Unit

Xiong, Wen
Zhang, Yuanyuan
Chen, Xiaohong
Jiang, Chao
2014

Being a public resource, the roadway space was distributed between different road users based on the Passenger-Car-Unit (PCU) concept. However, this concept tends to under estimate the capacity of public transportation and non-motorized travel. To improve the traditional car-oriented design to become more human-oriented, this study proposed a Passing-passenger-unit (PPU) and the method to observe the PPU in roadway level and area level. The PPU data were collected for urban arterials and residential areas in China to test the method and to compare the right-of-way distribution at...