TSC Newsletter: A Fifth Anniversary message

In this five-year retrospective of the UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center's activities, the center's unique capacity to advance traffic safety theory and practice because of its core competencies merits special emphasis. They demonstrate themselves in several facets:

Teaching: training students for future roles in promoting and spreading understanding of traffic safety,
Applied research: applying findings from the center's academic research to real-world solutions to real-world problems,
Service on task forces and advisory groups.

Teaching

Traffic Safety Center faculty teach two graduate courses, which are informed by the disciplines of public health and engineering in ways seldom available at this level of instruction and which give students a chance to interact with people from different fields. One course is offered through the School of Public Health, and the other is jointly offered by Public Health and Engineering. The courses are:

"Public Health Injury Prevention and Control," which explores statistical and policy analysis of public health and injury prevention. Brief description from UC Berkeley General Catalog of Classes.
"Traffic Safety and Injury Prevention," which integrates engineering, behavioral science, and vision science into a comprehensive approach to traffic safety. Brief description from UC Berkeley General Catalog of Classes.

In addition, the TSC hosts the Traffic Safety Seminar, which is open to the University community and the general public featuring both University and outside experts in traffic safety. Seminar page. Finally, center staff, researchers, and faculty have conducted lectures and made presentations to other classes and seminars on the UC Berkeley campus.

Applied Research

The center's applied research program takes the lessons learned from academic research and applies them to real-world problems and situations. Much of this work has been done in partnership with Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH), one of the center's sibling organizations that operate under the umbrella of the UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies. The center has worked with public and private agencies across California on a number of urgent and important traffic safety problems. The main areas on which the center's applied research has focused are:

Vulnerable population groups;
Non-motorized road users (primarily pedestrians and bicyclists);
Leveraging new technologies, especially those related to intelligent transportation, for traffic safety improvements;
Improving safety at high-crash locations and using data to set priorities in targeting them for mitigations;
Internal safety management at the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

Selected Applied Research Projects

Vulnerable Population Groups
These are groups whose age, ethnicity or socio-economic status or other demographic factors are connected with traffic risk.

Older Drivers: A longitudinal study following Sonoma County residents has focused on both the causes and consequences of driving limitation and cessation in older drivers. We found that vision loss was the most important causal factor, and depression was a major consequence. Studies of driving limitation and cessation are critical as the older driving population is projected to increase significantly in the near future due to factors such as the aging Baby Boomers and more seniors living independently in car-dominant environments. A report from the project can be found at http://repositories.cdlib.org/its/tsc/UCB-TSC-RR-2004-19/
Older Drivers with Occupants: This study on safety outcomes of older drivers and their passengers showed that the presence of passengers in the car greatly reduced collisions by older drivers. This interesting finding has promise for improving voluntary driving strategies and enhancing safety outcomes. TSC research on this and other aspects of older drivers can be found here: http://www.tsc.berkeley.edu/html/res_OD.html.
Teens: In California, over 870,000 teens age 15-19 possess a driver's license. Yet this prized possession comes with consequences: teens in California suffer higher traffic injury and fatality rates than any other age group. Our projects have consolidated research on causal factors of poor driving among teens and proven interventions for how to improve teen driving. We are developing a "best practices" guide for agencies and other organizations in dealing with this critical traffic safety issue. Learn more about the project.
Go to this issue's story about teen safety research at the TSC.
Latinos: California is likely to be majority Hispanic by 2020. The TSC has been working in partnership with the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a Latino policy and research organization, to enlist community knowledge and support to improve traffic safety in California's Latino communities. A follow-up project was funded in fall 2005 to conduct a demonstration project that focuses on preventing traffic injury and fatality in Latino populations. Learn more about Latino Traffic Safety Project.
Go to this issue's story about Latino Safety Project.

Non-motorized road users
Our projects on pedestrian and bicycle safety include evaluations that identify injury "hot spots" and identify potential countermeasures, and applied research studies that guide or implement solutions.

PedSafe: Conducted in collaboration with the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic, this was a study designed to analyze pedestrian injuries by zones (i.e., neighborhoods or districts), and to identify those most amenable to prevention efforts. The City is using the methodology and information from the PedSafe study to help shape a citywide pedestrian master plan. In conjunction with the PedSafe study, countermeasures are being implemented, and the TSC is conducting a follow-up evaluation. Go to the PedSafe study at http://repositories.cdlib.org/its/tsc/UCB-TSC-RR-2003-12/.
Go to this issue's story about PedSafe.
San Pablo Corridor: The San Pablo "SMART" Corridor is a major urban arterial that is being upgraded to improve traffic flow for autos and transit. The TSC is providing crucial information to enhance safety and usability for bicycles and pedestrians. The TSC's zone analysis has identified high concentration os pedestrian and bicyclist injuries in the corridor, and has led to recommendations for location-appropriate countermeasures. Go to a description of the San Pablo "SMART" Corridor project.
Go to this issue's story about the San Pablo Corridor.
Emeryville: The local government in Emeryville is taking a proactive approach to anticipated growth in pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The TSC conducted an assessment of pedestrian and bicycle safety at four intersections in the city. The goal of the project was to design approaches that increase safety and convenience for vulnerable road users while still maintaining capacity for motor vehicles. Go to a description of the Emeryville safety evaluation project.
Go to this issue's story about the Emeryville pedestrian safety evaluation.
Oakland Scramble: Working closely with local and community organizations, the TSC assessed conditional at a key intersection with heavy pedestrian traffic and high injury rates in Oakland's Chinatown. This project involved evaluating the effectiveness of a new intervention at the intersection—a four-way pedestrian "scramble" that allowed pedestrians to cross diagonally or conventionally with no vehicular competition. Go to report on Oakland Scramble evaluation.
Go to this issue's story about the Oakland Scramble.
Space Syntax: The TSC used an innovative geospatial modeling technique known as Space Syntax to create estimates of pedestrian volumes and learn more about pedestrian exposure for the City of Oakland, California. The project quantified certain observations, such as the phenomenon that safety for individual pedestrians is greater when the overall number of pedestrians is higher (i.e.,there is greater "safety in numbers"). Go to report on Space Syntax analysis. Go to Space Syntax presentation made at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board.

Leveraging new technologies, especially intelligent transportation
Another focus of the TSC has been to assess and integrate new technologies that use intelligent detection and decision-making to aid motorists and other roadway users.

Intersection Decision Support: The project of the Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) sought to provide intelligent guidance to vehicles in intersection maneuvers. The TSC provided expertise on how to incorporate pedestrian and bicycle movement into this system. Visit the TSC's Intersection Decision Support page.
Bicycle Detection for Signal Actuation: This project is intended to make transportation safer for bicyclists, who are among the most vulnerable road users. It is drawing on newly available technology designed to aid motorized vehicles and signal systems by enhancing it to detect bicycles as well.
Driver Behavior at Rail Crossings: This project uses epidemiological and human factor analysis to understand risk and exposure at rail crossings, in order to design more effective warnings and barriers that are also more cost-effective and more likely to be implemented. Learn more about the TSC's rail crossings research.

Improving safety at high-crash locations
The TSC's work on high-crash locations includes a number of projects that focus on improving methodologies used to investigate collisions that take place at them.

High Collision Concentration Locations: PATH and the TSC have been asked to evaluate the State of California's methods for identifying high-risk locations and to make recommendations for the first changes in these methods in nearly 40 years. This project provides a major opportunity to demonstrate new ways of analyzing and understanding traffic safety issues in the nation's most auto-dominant and auto-populous state.
Wet Pavement/High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes/Ramps: These three components of the surface transportation system are associated with unique safety risks, and the TSC is involved in assessing them.
GIS: The TSC is using GIS technologies to develop comprehensive and easily understood descriptions of aggregated data about traffic risks so that agencies and policymakers can better tailor policies and programs. Learn about GIS projects.
CHP: Mapping done by the TSC is enabling the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to identify "hot spots" or areas with higher than average concentrations of alcohol-related traffic crashes to help focus enforcement and outreach programs. The project focuses on DUI incidence in key corridors in the sate. Learn more about DUI mapping project for the CHP.
Go to this issue's story about DUI mapping.

Internal safety management of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
These studies involve a series of related evaluations to help improve the performance and safety of Caltrans operations.

Database of Worker Injuries: The TSC is involved in a comprehensive evaluation of the Caltrans safety management system. Analysing a large database of worker injuries and workers compensation claims, the TSC will identify areas of causes of worker injuries and cite areas for safety Improvements.
Fleet Study: The TSC, in association with PATH, is examining causes of Caltrans vehicular failures. Through data analysis and interviews with key personnel, the goal is to identify structural and procedural changes that can be made to efficiently and cost-effectively improve the Caltrans fleet.
Backing Study: Many accidents occur when drivers are backing up, leading to significant cost to Caltrans. The TSC, with PATH, are looking at causes of such accidents and changes that can be made to reduce their occurrence. Learn more about backing study.

Task Forces and Advisory Groups

Another of the TSC's priorities is to serve on task forces. They bring together multi-disciplinary teams of experts to develop a comprehensive, coordinated approach to specific injury prevention and traffic safety problems. Some of the task forces that the TSC has participated in are described below.

Older Californian Traffic Safety Task Force: This was convened to develop a framework of state-level policy and programmatic recommendations for improving traffic safety for older adults while maintaining their quality of life.
Statewide Committee on Traffic Safety (SCOTS): This is a committee consisting of all major agencies in the state concerned with traffic safety. It was convened in order to develop statewide strategies for reducing traffic injuries and death.
Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP): This is a statewide, integrated, collaborative approach to improvement safety on California's roadways. As required by SAFETEA-LU, the federal transportation law signed into effect in 2005, SHSP is working to identify safety projects and strategies that address key safety needs in California. The TSC is on the Steering Committee for the planning process and is providing technical support.

Download printer-friendly PDF of Newsletter

Download printer-friendly PDF of this article only