How one state is using technology to curb high pedestrian fatality rates
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Texas has the second highest pedestrian fatality rates in the country. It is looking beyond just physical infrastructure to curb traffic deaths in the state.
Pedestrian traffic deaths nationwide dropped for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to preliminary data released last month. But pedestrian deaths still remain at near historic highs, leaving many transportation officials and safety advocates searching for why the numbers have been climbing and what to do about it.
Some of the solutions are familiar: Reconfigure roads to slow down vehicles, repaint crosswalks or allow extra time for pedestrians to cross at stoplights. But many in the industry are looking beyond just infrastructure improvements and exploring how emerging technologies might make roads safer.
That’s the story in Texas, which has the second highest pedestrian fatality rates in the country, according to preliminary data from the Governors Highway Safety Administration.
Speaking at an Amazon Web Services conference this week, Mike Arellano, deputy district director for the Texas Department of Transportation’s Austin District, said he receives “sobering” traffic fatality reports at 5 a.m. every day from across the district, which covers more than 9,000 square miles in 11 counties and racks up more than 45 million vehicle miles traveled daily.
Arellano and other state officials are rolling out new traffic technologies that, among other things, utilize artificial intelligence in an effort to curb the high fatalities.
“I truly believe technology and providing all the insights that we can through AI and machine learning is the next frontier to reduce those fatalities in the future,” he said.
Arellano blames many of the crashes and fatalities in his district on poorly timed lights at intersections, where more drivers are inclined to accelerate through intersections before the lights turn red. Getting those timings fixed can be an arduous task for transportation departments, as the only way for workers to know about them is for residents to report them. The state has to send engineers out to the site to fix them manually, which takes time.
To find these intersections and fix them more quickly, Arellano has rolled out intelligent transportation software that allows the district to collect data from multiple state and local agencies on construction zones and other anomalies on the road. Additional software ingests that data, as well as data collected by connected vehicles, stoplights and other sensors.
Together, the data helps traffic engineers see, for example, where drivers are slamming on their brakes or hitting the gas pedal. That, in turn, allows them to determine where safety improvements should be made to reduce the risk of accidents.
They use all that data to identify “hotspots,” said Scott Carlson, senior vice president for mobility professional services at Iteris, which supplies software to Texas. It allows traffic engineers to be “more responsive and more proactive,” he said, speaking on the same panel as Arellano.
The technologies have helped, said Arellano. They’ve led to a 29% reduction in secondary crashes—where motorists cause other collisions near a crash site if they are distracted by something around them. Meanwhile, the data has helped the state open up roadways faster after crashes. Roads are back to normal operations and traffic flow 44 minutes earlier than before.
This “AI-assisted approach” could be applied in different ways, including using the data to identify patterns and automatically fixing issues like signal timing, said Paul-Matthew Zamsky, vice president for strategic growth and global partnerships at Rekor, another company supplying software to Texas.
Progress is slow, however. Connecting traffic signals, vehicles and other infrastructure requires broadband internet, and its rollout nationwide has been uneven. The internet also must have enough capacity to cope with the sheer amount of data being sent back and forth. “Connectivity is king,” said Carlson.
Transportation departments at all levels as well as cities also struggle with managing their assets, making it hard to know what infrastructure to connect. Carlson said DOTs are “very behind the curve” on managing their traffic signals, with some unable to say how many intersections they have, the infrastructure present and what software and technology they use.
Anh Selissen, chief information officer for the Texas Department of Transportation, said an asset management database is something the agency is looking to improve.
Traffic deaths, especially pedestrian deaths, are too high. But Ryan Reynolds, justice and public safety team leader at Amazon Web Services, emphasized that without technology, deaths could be even higher. He said as more jurisdictions adopt these solutions and others, a “technology curve” should help bring deaths down.
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