Estimating Pedestrian Accident Exposure: Approaches to a Statewide Pedestrian Exposure Database

This report discusses approaches to addressing the need for better and more widely available pedestrian volume data in the state of California. While a variety of approaches could be used, this report focuses on the strategy of a statewide pedestrian volume database. This database would meet a variety of data needs for different stakeholder groups. One of its principal purposes would be to allow safety professionals at the state and local levels to estimate pedestrian exposure to risk at specific sites. Since exposure data is essentially equivalent to facility usage data, a pedestrian exposure data would be used for many purposes beyond risk analysis. Facility usage data might be used by municipalities to pinpoint new infrastructure needs, or to determine whether new infrastructure encourages more pedestrian activity. Facility usage data might also be used by advocacy groups as a means to promote new facility investments. If the database includes information beyond pedestrian volumes, such as facility characteristics (e.g. the availability of sidewalks and intersection crossings) or planning variables (e.g. land uses and population densities), it may be used as a means to improve pedestrian demand modeling techniques or to investigate the relationship between pedestrian environmental quality and pedestrian demand.