Urban commuters may be less likely to encounter automobile accidents if they are willing to increase trip time, researchers report. A new study from the University of Illinois introduces a tool that helps quantify the connection between traffic accidents and city road networks.
The study, published in the journal Transportation Research Part C, used traffic speed, accident count, and trip origin and destination data collected from New York City taxi services and police reports to build a routing algorithm.
“Zipcars, rideshares – and eventually autonomous vehicles – have led to a huge disruption in transportation,” said Richard Sowers, a professor of mathematics and industrial and enterprise systems engineering and lead author of the study. “We identified a need for a tool that could help city planners, insurers and researchers communicate best practices for traffic-routing problems in different cities – from a safety perspective.”