Pedestrian Exposure Data for the Wisconsin State Highway System: WisDOT Southeast Region Pilot Study

This project for the WisDOT Bureau of Transportation Safety produced two peer-reviewed papers to inform professional safety practice. The first, authored Robert Schneider, Andrew Schmitz, Greg Lindsey, and Xiao Qin, is titled “Development and Validation of a Seven-County Regional Pedestrian Volume Model” (2021). It used seven statistically-significant variables to estimate annual pedestrian crossing volumes at intersections along major roadways. The results could be used to estimate exposure in pedestrian safety analyses and could become the basis for a statewide pedestrian volume model. The second paper, authored by Robert Schneider, Andrew Schmitz, Greg Lindsey, and Xiao Qin, is titled “Exposure-Based Models of Trail User Crashes at Roadway Crossings” (2021). It presents one of the first pedestrian and bicyclist crash models for multi-use trail roadway crossings. Results show that trail user crashes were associated with trail user volumes, motor vehicle volumes, trail crossings at three-way intersections where the trail was perpendicular to the mainline roadway, and total crossing distance. The project also collected pedestrian counts at three sites in the Milwaukee region using continuous, automated counters and tested automated video data collection methods to capture pedestrian and motorist counts and behaviors at several intersections with WisDOT traffic cameras.