Safety

Traffic safety plays a central role in increasing active transportation, and connecting shared mobility modes to conventional public transit. However, traffic deaths are traditionally framed as individual and mechanical failures rather than systematic flaws in mobility planning, urban and street design. More recently though, a planning focused safety approach has emerged. In the 1980s, a Dutch safety model commonly known as the "sustainable safety traffic system" developed several quantitative targets to reduce severe collisions through better-integrated community and street planning. Scandinavian and East Asian nations advanced the Dutch concept, treating collisions as a preventable disease. Beneath these fundamental safety principles, evidence points to two root causes of traffic safety problems: greater distance driven per licensed driver is a strong predictor of crashes, and the combination of wider streets/intersections with wide lanes and unwarranted/unused right-turn lanes with island lead to higher crashes in the face of an aging society and greater usage of sustainable and shared mobility options. Oversized infrastructures with higher design speeds tend to reduce interaction between the street users, which ultimately increases collision risks. Policies towards the systematic reduction of vehicle traffic while increasing pedestrian and cycling usage in greater numbers and redistributing space and rescaling urban infrastructures have emerged as ultimate safety solutions. Recent “Complete Street” design approaches improve overall safety and create an opportunity for multi-modal mobility. The proposed model utilizes the scientific approach of safety performance function to investigate root cause current safety conditions. Forecasted multimodal trips and corresponding reduction of vehicle traffic due to shared mobility services, a combination of “sustainable safety”, and non-linear risk behavior and “community safety planning” concepts were applied to identify several safety boundaries.

Central Ideas around safety planniing and design

• Vision Zero
• Community Safety Planning
• Right-Sizing
• Safety All Ages and Genders