Pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities make up nearly 20% of all traffic fatalities, and the trend is on the rise, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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In the quest to improve transportation safety for those not in vehicles, two UWM researchers will receive $1.67 million of a multi-university grant from the DOT.
The DOT advances transportation research and develops the next generation of transportation professionals by investing in 20 University Transportation Centers (UTCs), involving a consortia of U.S. colleges and universities to study a specific topic.
This grant supports a new UTC devoted to research on pedestrian and bicycle safety. Led by the University of New Mexico, the center includes four other members, including UWM.
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The UWM researchers are Robert Schneider, a professor of urban planning in the School of Architecture & Urban Planning, and Xiao Qin, the Lawrence E. Sivak professor of civil & environmental engineering in the College of Engineering & Applied Science. Schneider specializes in sustainable transportation, and Qin directs his college’s Institute for Physical Infrastructure and Transportation.
The UWM researchers will lead several of the new center’s planned projects:
- Most traffic fatalities occur on roadways with high speed limits and traffic speeds. This research will develop a measure that can be used by practitioners to quantify the tradeoff between speed and safety in roadway corridors.
- About 15% of U.S. pedestrian fatalities occur on freeways, but little is known about the causes of these crashes. How many are related to people getting out of broken-down vehicles? How many are in construction zones? Do most occur at night?
- In nine large U.S. cities, pedestrian fatalities have decreased significantly in downtown areas, while increasing in the suburbs. The research will examine this trend.