A USDOT University Transportation Center

Mandate Anonymized Access to Critical Safety Data

Anonymized access to safety data involves the process of making use of anonymized data to understand, manage, and maintain transportation networks. Anonymized data about person movement, vehicle movement, and transportation demand should be made readily available, as it pertains to the public interest.1 This data can then be used by city governments to identify safety challenges and find solutions to save lives. The process entails integrating existing anonymized data and analyzing the data to provide new insights into transportation safety risks and how they can be avoided.

Considering this strategy will help achieve the goal of the following objectives

  • Less Contamination
  • Less Emissions
  • Less Traffic Noise
  • Connectivity and Inclusion
  • Healthy Destinations
  • Less Traffic Violence
  • Active Transportation
  • Green Space

Transportation lifecycle phases

This strategy is associated with the following transportation lifecycle phases:

  • Construction
  • End of Life
  • Maintenance
  • Material Selection
  • Operations
  • Policy and Planning
  • Project Development

Who's involved

  • Local governments
  • MPOs
  • Policymakers
  • State governments
  • Technology companies
  • Transit agencies
Anonymized access to safety data involves the process of making use of anonymized data to understand, manage, and maintain transportation networks. Anonymized data about person movement, vehicle movement, and transportation demand should be made readily available, as it pertains to the public interest.1 This data can then be used by city governments to identify safety challenges and find solutions to save lives. The process entails integrating existing anonymized data and analyzing the data to provide new insights into transportation safety risks and how they can be avoided.

How it Helps

Safety data will help detect safety concerns and to inform policy and evidence-based decision making. The data assists the government, transit agencies, and MPOs in making better safety policy decisions and allocating resources effectively. This will help reduce the incidence of road accidents, hence ensuring safety for all road users and the entire community.

Implementing

Partnership:

The partnerships between various organizations should be considered, as this would allow the development of a program where cell phone companies can provide anonymous access to vehicle data in the public interest of increasing traffic safety and evaluating city transportation projects.

Challenges:

Technology businesses provide real-time data regarding operations on municipal streets, informing users about vehicle traffic, transportation demand, etc. However, they are not widely distributed, accessible, or available.

Examples

1) USDOT’s Safety Data Initiative

The Safety Data Initiative is a program under the U.S. Department of Transportation that utilizes anonymized data to identify safety problems and come up with solutions that could save lives. The initiative uses existing data and advanced data analytics to make data visualizations and provide new information about safety risks in transportation.

https://www.transportation.gov/content/safety-data-initiative

2) NHTSA’s National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA)

NCSA is an office of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that uses a wide range of analytical and statistical data to provide data-driven efforts to improve safety among all road users.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/national-center-statistics-and-analysis-ncsa

1. The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO). (2018). Creating Safe, Sustainable, Multi-modal Urban Transportation. [cited 2022 Jun 29]. Available from: https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/NACTO-Policy-2018.pdf