Above: Houston
Mayor Sylvester
Turner launching the
city’s Vision Zero
initiative
the scale of dangerous traffic, then
continued to show support as the
project came together. You can have
a good plan, but you always need
public support to move towards
executing it. The business community
has kept this project moving.”
Driven by data
Vision Zero is essentially data-driven
and Brisk Synergies, a TSR member
specializing in video analytics, is
providing services to Houston. As
part of the Gulfton study, Brisk
analyzed interactions between
vehicles and vulnerable users in the
high-risk Hillcroft Avenue corridor,
where high-speed, high-volume
traffic bisects an area of businesses
and schools.
Using traffic camera footage, the
BriskLUMINA platform performed
pedestrian-focused safety diagnostics
by analyzing collisions, near-misses
and dangerous interactions. Such
analysis can pinpoint the factors
causing road deaths and injuries and
enable smart interventions. Since
over 90% of US road collisions result
from human error, data may have
a crucial role in addressing
dangerous driver behaviors.
“In Houston, intoxication,
speeding and driver inattention are
primary factors contributing to
fatalities,” says Budnick. Driver cell
phone use presents a growing
problem, which Budnick believes
video analytics and telematics from
TSR members Geotab and Zendrive
can enable Houston to combat.
“We can never eliminate traffic
deaths by waiting for the next dataset
90 Percentage of US road
collisions that are caused
by human error, as opposed
of traffic deaths,”
he says. “But by
measuring
where people
are speeding or
talking on their
phone, we can
intervene before
crashes happen.”
He believes the
advent of fully
autonomous
transportation may take
generations to achieve, but
sees potential in applying fastevolving
to a mechanical fault
autonomous driving
technologies to improve road safety
now. “So much video technology,
machine learning and research into
driver behavior is going into robot
cars,” he says. “All that data can be
used to design safer streets. Knowing
how, when and where collisions
happen and who the drivers and
victims are allows you to develop
effective interventions to reach those
populations.”
Ahead of the curve
TSR members including Anheuser-
Busch, AT&T, PepsiCo and Republic
Services collectively manage more
than 600,000 fleet vehicles globally.
Whereas other Vision Zero programs
have been slow to capitalize on datadriven
fleet safety, the expertise of
these companies and telematics
partners like Geotab will form a
cornerstone of Houston’s approach
and enable the City of Houston’s own
fleet to lead by example.
“The Mayor is making a bold
commitment to eliminate traffic
deaths by 2030
and proposing
strategies to
improve driver
behavior,” says
Budnick. “But
importantly, by
focusing on
the municipal
fleet, they can start
in-house and make
their drivers as safe as
possible while they ask
Houstonians to do the same.
Essentially the Mayor is saying,
‘We’re not asking anyone to do
something we’re not willing to
do ourselves.’”
For Budnick, a life’s work in traffic
safety has stemmed from his own
experience. “I’ve been lucky to be
a bike rider for both transportation
and exercise since high school,” he
reflects. “It can bring you joy, but the
visceral experience of riding up close
in traffic can bring you the opposite
of joy. Many bike riders find their
way into improving road safety –
maybe it’s self-preservation.”
With low-income countries as well
as underserved US communities
facing the gravest traffic risks,
Budnick reports interest from Egypt,
Mexico and the Philippines, and
TSR’s multinational membership
position it to improve road safety far
beyond American shores. “We’re still
a young organization developing our
internal systems and evaluating
proposals and projects,” says
Budnick. “While we do that, there’s
certainly no shortage of deadly
streets for us to work on.”
Vision Zero |
022 Traffic Technology International November/December 2019
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