SafeTREC

ITS Staff Spotlight: Matthew Raifman

August 28, 2025

Matt Raifman _ Scooter SpotlightFeatured Center: SafeTREC

Name: Matthew Raifman

What’s your hometown?

“Charm City” Baltimore, Maryland

What is your role at ITS, describe your job in four words, and how long have you been here?

I’m a senior researcher at Safe Transportation Research & Education Center (...

The Analysis of Right-of-Way for Different Road Users in China: Passing-Passenger-Unit Versus Passenger-Car-Unit

Xiong, Wen, Professor
Zhang, Yuanyuan, PhD
Chen, Xiaohong, Professor
Jiang, Chao
2014

Being a public resource, the roadway space was distributed between different road users based on the Passenger-Car-Unit (PCU) concept. However, this concept tends to under estimate the capacity of public transportation and non-motorized travel. To improve the traditional car-oriented design to become more human-oriented, this study proposed a Passing-passenger-unit (PPU) and the method to observe the PPU in roadway level and area level. The PPU data were collected for urban arterials and residential areas in China to test the method and to compare the right-of-way distribution at different...

Safe Routes to School Local School Project: A Health Evaluation at 10 Low-Income Schools

Cooper, Jill F., MSW
McMillan, Tracy PhD
2010

Routes to School National Partnership (Partnership) founded the Local School Project (Project) in 2008 to assist ten schools in lowincome communities to: 1) develop and evaluate a school-based SRTS program, 2) build local capacity to apply for state or federal SRTS funding, and 3) increase safe walking and bicycling to and from the school and in the community. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaiser Permanente, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided funding for the Project.This report presents the results, lessons learned and recommendations identified during the...

Association Between Roadway Intersection Characteristics and Pedestrian Crash Risk in Alameda County, California

Schneider, Robert J.
Diogenes, Mara Chagas
Arnold, Lindsay S.
Attaset, Vanvisa
Griswold, Julia
Ragland, David R.
2010

Each year from 1998 to 2007, an average of approximately 4,800 pedestrians were killed and 71,000 pedestrians were injured in United States traffic crashes. Because many pedestrian crashes occur at roadway intersections, it is important to understand the intersection characteristics that are associated with pedestrian crash risk. This study uses detailed pedestrian crash data and pedestrian volume estimates to analyze pedestrian crash risk at 81 intersections along arterial and collector roadways in Alameda County, California. The analysis compares pedestrian crash rates (crashes per 10,...

Applying Safety Treatments to Rail-Highway At-Grade Crossings

Cooper, Douglas L.
Ragland, David R.
2012

At-grade rail crossings provide different levels of warnings and/or barriers to alert drivers to the potential dangers presented by approaching trains. For some drivers, an activated warning system, rather than being a signal to stop, merely serves as a cue for the need to make a decision whether or not to cross. In California, for the ten-year period from 2001 to 2010, the result was 1,033 trainvehicle crashes resulting in 157 deaths and 458 injuries. The best solution to rail crossing crashes is to remove the need for the driver to engage in a potentially faulty decision-making process...

Pre-Hospital Care of Road Traffic Injuries in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Brown, Ted R
Geyer, Judy A
Taghavy, Azita
Mitchell, Brian P
Ragland, David R
2004

In many developing countries, transportation infrastructure development lags behind the tremendous growth in motorization. Road traffic injuries cause enormous morbidity and mortality worldwide, placing heavy burdens on global and national economies. .Underdeveloped transportation infrastructures critical to traffic safety include roadway improvement, occupant protection laws, traffic law enforcement, and emergency medical services (EMS). Highlighting one important aspect of lagging infrastructure, this article focuses on emergency medical services. This research study offers a descriptive...

Bicycle Infrastructure that Extends Beyond the Door: Examining Investments in Bicycle-Oriented Design Through a Qualitative Survey of Commercial Building Owners and Tenants

Orrick, Phyllis
Frick, Karen
Ragland, David R
2011

This paper presents the results of a qualitative survey of commercial owners, managers, and occupants in the City of Berkeley who have invested in on-site bicycle facilities such as secure parking, showers, changing rooms, and clothing lockers, what we are calling “bicycle-oriented design” (BOD). The sites represent a selection of building types common in the commercial building stock in U.S. cities.The research is designed to answer three questions about the use of BOD: (1) what were motivations behind the decision to invest in BOD (2) what are the challenges and rewards for investing in...