3 “blind spots” in designing safer roads  

One of the first things they teach in Drivers Ed is to always check your blind spots before making a move, whether that’s changing lanes, merging onto a freeway, or backing out of a parking spot. And while this rule of thumb is important for individual drivers and their safety, it’s equally as critical for transportation planners and overall road safety.   

Similar to how drivers check their blind spots before changing lanes, transportation planners should check the “blind spots” in their data before making a “move.” In a recent ITS America webinar, Arity Director of Product Management Kamron Clifford joined Erik Dietz from Michelin Mobility Intelligence and Bill Kotowski from the Idaho Transportation Department to unveil three of these road safety blind spots. 

Blind spot #1: Rural areas and underserved communities  

According to Erik, population bias has been a key challenge for transportation planners for decades due to datasets that lack representation. For instance, road safety plans that rely solely on crash data collected from police reports tend to overlook rural areas and other underserved communities. And the same issue arises with roadside units (RSUs), which are much more prevalent in urban cities than along country roads.  

Erik pointed out that while all data has some level of bias, new data capabilities and strategic data partnerships are tackling these challenges. The emergence of mobile phone-based data has brought more representative datasets to the public sector.  

With a connection to more than 40M U.S. drivers via consumer mobile apps, Arity’s dataset represents all road types, which even commercial fleet data often misses because of bias towards freeways. In fact, about 65% of our 1.5 trillion miles of driving data is from arterial roads.  

“What we’re really excited about is that our partnership with Arity brings together a collective of data – between what Michelin already has through our fleet telematics companies as well as what Arity is bringing – to have a more representative dataset that has less blind spots.” – Erik Dietz, Michelin Mobility Intelligence

Blind spot #2: Unreported crashes and near-misses 

Another flaw with relying on crash data from police reports to inform transportation planning decisions is that it often fails to capture the full picture. Bill said the Idaho Transportation Department organizes a lot of behavioral safety programs, which involve funding law enforcement activities such as patrolling for drunk drivers and distracted drivers. He acknowledged that looking beyond crash reports is beneficial because other data sources, like mobile phones, can offer a more comprehensive understanding of road risk – 

• By providing insight into unreported crashes and near-misses, which police reports don’t capture.  

• By unveiling which risky behaviors – for example, speeding or phone handling while driving – are causing crashes. Phone handling insights cannot be readily obtained from other sources like connected vehicle data, yet it is an essential insight to understand distracted driving.  

With these anonymized, aggregated insights, Arity – in partnership with Michelin Mobility Intelligence – is helping departments of transportation (DOTs) design safer roads to reduce fatalities across the nation’s roadways.  

“What Arity brings to the table is more than a trillion miles of historical driving data, and Michelin brings their data science expertise. Through this partnership, we’re able to provide an unprecedented view into how drivers are behaving. And importantly, we’re aiming to make these insights actionable and accessible in order to inform decision-making at all levels of agencies.” – Kamron Clifford, Arity

Blind spot #3: Up-to-date road safety insights  

Along with a more complete picture, the timeliness of data can also be a challenge when it comes to road safety planning. Bill explained the process of submitting, collecting, and analyzing crash data from police reports can create a frustrating lag in the ability to respond to risky conditions.   

When police are called to investigate a crash, an officer investigates and gathers information in a report which is later submitted to the transportation department. However, according to Bill, the timeline for submitting varies from agency to agency. And then, once the department has the report, the team still needs to look through it, input the data into a platform, and then analyze altogether to form actionable insights.  

“When people are dying, we need to find solutions for today using the best data we can. If there are ways to enhance the timeliness of the data, I think that’s really important.” – Bill Kotowski, the Idaho Transportation Department

Driving event insights from Arity and Michelin Mobility Intelligence have the representation, scale, and – importantly – the timeliness needed to effectively mitigate “blind spots,” benchmark road segments for risk, and inform DOTs’ safety plans. With data that is gathered passively and automatically, it is readily available to inform decision-making. 

Want to learn more about designing safer roads? Check out our panel recap from the Michelin Mobility Intelligence-hosted panel discussion, “Improving safety for vulnerable road users.”