History/Mission

1. History/Mission • Founded in 2000 with a grant from California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries through multi-disciplinary collaboration in: • Education (graduate and undergraduate courses, workshop for professionals, community leaders, and members of the public) • Technical support (local, state, and federal public agencies) • Information dissemination and outreach (Web sites, newsletters, and academic and technical reports)

2. Research Areas and Other Activities • Active Transportation • Collision Analysis • Policy Analysis • Practice, Enforcement, and Outreach • Global Traffic Safety • Courses/Traffic Safety Curriculum www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

3. Active Transportation Selected Past Projects • Evaluation of urban travel training for older adults • Methods for identifying high priority pedestrian locations • Pedestrian crossing signal timing optimization • Safety, physical activity, and the built environment • Driver and pedestrian understanding and behavior at crosswalks www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

4. Active Transportation Sample Current Project • UC Berkeley Campus Periphery Safety Analysis and Countermeasure Recommendations • Significant campus characteristics: • single largest destination in Alameda County • 34,000 workday trips by students and 14,000 by faculty and staff • 59 percent are by walking, bicycling, transit, or some combination • among students, that figure is 90 percent. • Project objectives: For the campus and surrounding area, identify and prioritize bike and pedestrian improvements; improve information on risk and safety; and develop proposals for implementation. www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

5. Active Transportation Sample Upcoming Project Pedestrian Safety Improvement Program (PSIP) A three-year project to provide the foundation for an ongoing Pedestrian Safety Improvement Program at the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Project focus: data collection and research in support of planning and implementing pedestrian safety engineering, education, and enforcement projects. Project tasks:  1. Data Evaluation and Improvement 2. Expansion of Data Access 3. Pedestrian Volume Assessment 4. Hazard Assessment 5. Causal Analysis and Countermeasure Selection 6. Benefit-Cost Calculation and Prioritization 7. Identification of Funding Sources and Funding Strategies 8. Institutionalization. www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

6. Collision Analysis Selected Research Areas and Activities • Data Collection Methods • Geocoding • Web-Based and Desktop Mapping Tools • Spatial Analysis • Visualization • Causal Analysis • Risk Analysis www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

7. Collision Analysis Sample Current Activity Web-Based Collision Mapping Tool Using Geocoded Data from the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) Background: Previously, to access SWITRS data, a request had to be made to a California Highway Patrol staff member to run a database query and deliver the data set or data tables. Project Objective: Develop a web-based tool to allow querying and mapping of fatal or severe injury collisions in SWITRS and lower barriers to data access and increase the use of empirical data in traffic injury prevention activities. Project Conclusion: A user-friendly Web interface was created to facilitate the use of SWITRS data with geographic coordinates. A public rollout of the Web site is scheduled for fall 2010. www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

8. Collision Analysis Sample Current Activity • Continuous Risk Profile (CRP) Demonstration Webinar for Caltrans District Leaders • Background: Many existing methods for detecting collision concentration locations (such as the conventional sliding moving window approach) require segmentation of roadways and assume traffic collision data are spatially uncorrelated, resulting in false positives and false negatives. • CRP Capabilities: • does not require segmentation of roadways • spatial correlation in the collision data does not affect results • lower false positive rates • proactive identification of locations • plots are highly reproducible over the years • can capture “spillover benefit” of countermeasures • simple to use. • CRP Action Items: • Webinar demonstration for Caltrans District staff scheduled for mid-September. www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

9. Policy Analysis • California Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP): • Sole provider of data analysis for California SHSP • Extensive participation and leadership in SHSP planning and implementation • 5 Percent Report • Develop and administer SHSP tracking system • Statewide Coalition on Traffic Safety (SCOTS): • Administer SCOTS, a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)-sponsored and OTS-funded organization to cut across institutional barriers and foster collaboration among statewide traffic safety stakeholders. • Health Impacts of Transportation Policy: • Analysis for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of more than 100 transportation policies and their impact on public health. • Similar project for Kaiser Family Foundation in California. www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

10. Practice, Enforcement, and Outreach Community Pedestrian Safety Trainings: Organized and conducted 12 trainings around California (Northern California, Central Valley, and Southern California). Roughly 700 participants, including elected officials, teen groups, city traffic engineers, public health educators, parents, community members, non-profits, etc. • Administer NHTSA-Funded Checkpoint Mini-Grants: Developed automated on-line application process that resulted in increased efficiencies in grant administration; created grantee information pages on the SafeTREC Web site. • Click It or Ticket Seatbelt Checkpoint Mini-Grants: 158 grants administered for just over$3 million in the most recent Fiscal Year. • Sobriety Checkpoint Mini-Grants: 148 grants administered for just under $7.6 million in the most recent Fiscal Year.

11. Global Traffic Safety Center (GTSC) • Collaborative projects and partnerships to provide the underpinnings for a network based at UC Berkley to promote and study global traffic safety issues. • Initial scoping and discussions: Tony Bliss (a former leading transportation official at the World Bank) and Charles Zegeer (North Carolina Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center) scheduled for mid-September 2010. • Collaboration with international partners: • Dozens of visiting scholars and students from various countries. • Working partnership with Korean Transportation Institute • Advisor for international safety conferences, most recently Jerusalem vulnerable road user conference. www.safetrec.berkeley.edu

12. Courses/Traffic Safety Curriculum • SafeTREC is entering the15th year of teaching graduate-level interdisciplinary courses that draw the fields of public health, occupational health, injury prevention and control, engineering, and planning. Courses that have been developed and taught over the years are listed below. • Public Health Injury Prevention and Control (PH 285a) • Fall 2010 • David Ragland PhD, MPH, School of Public Health, SafeTREC; Koohong Chung, PhD, PE, • SafeTREC; Glenn Shor, PhD, MPP, Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health • Planning for Traffic Safety (CE 265) • Pedestrian and Bicycle Transportation (CP 298) www.safetrec.berkeley.edu