Populus Partners with UNC on National Study for Scooter Safety
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - July 1, 2020 - The Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program (BTSCRP) has funded a $490K study to examine emerging safety issues related to electric scooters (or e-scooters). The project seeks to advance multimodal road safety by identifying safety risks emerging from the growing use of e-scooters and developing comprehensive guidance, tools, policy options, and educational materials to mitigate those risks.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Highway Safety Research Center will lead the effort in close partnership with a multidisciplinary group of transportation experts at UNC’s Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP), University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK), Safe Streets Research & Consulting (SSRC), Populus, and Equitable Cities. HSRC’s Dr. Laura Sandt will serve as the Principal Investigator on the project.
“As e-scooters become increasingly commonplace, policymakers will need to quickly respond to emerging technologies and changes in public demand for micromobility,” said Dr. Sandt. “Equipping transportation practitioners and decision-makers with a comprehensive toolbox of evidence-based approaches to mitigate safety issues related to these technologies will improve safety and accessibility for all road users.”
“It is clear that shared e-scooters, alongside bikes, have become a popular transportation solution that can substitute for personal and shared automobiles in cities,” said Regina Clewlow, CEO of Populus. “We look forward to working with the public sector, private sector, and leading academics to provide tools that improve the safety of this new audience of vulnerable road users.”
The project is expected to generate concrete guidance for e-scooter management, along with a report that will 1) describe the state of use/exposure and safety trends among e-scooter users and markets; 2) identify contributing factors (both behavioral and environmental) to safety risks; and 3) summarize how cities are working to support, manage, and/or regulate the use of e-scooters to prevent and mitigate injuries and provide a series of case studies highlighting real world practices. The research and guidance will provide evidence-based strategies and supporting tools for e-scooter safety actions that can be integrated into state and local highway safety plans, policies, programs, and projects.
This effort builds upon the team’s prior research on e-scooters, including a recent project developing a series of new ICD-10-CM codes to categorize injuries related to micromobility devices and Populus’ collaborative work with cities to harness micromobility data to design safer, more sustainable streets through their platform.
Work on this 30-month project is scheduled to begin in June 2020. To learn more about this project, visit https://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4793.
About Populus
The Populus platform helps cities and private mobility providers deliver safe, efficient, and equitable streets. Populus is a comprehensive digital solution that empowers cities to manage their streets and develop data-driven policies with access to data from mobility operators (shared bikes, scooters, and cars). Founded by transportation PhDs from MIT and UC Berkeley, the Populus team combines over 30 years of experience building software for public agencies to plan for the future of transportation. Learn more at populus.ai
About the UNC Highway Safety Research Center
The University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center strives to shape the field and future direction of transportation safety. HSRC is committed to excellence in sound research, and improving transportation safety is the preeminent goal. As the birthplace of innovative national programs, the Center’s mission is to improve the safety, sustainability and efficiency of all surface transportation modes through a balanced, interdisciplinary program of research, evaluation, and information dissemination. Learn more at www.hsrc.unc.edu.