Event Review: ATSIP Traffic Records Forum

The Citian team enjoyed traveling to San Diego to attend this year’s ATSIP Traffic Records Forum conference in early August. The team participated in three days of discussion about the latest safety data collection methods and best practices for improving the accuracy of safety data, advancing traffic records systems, and using data to help save lives. 

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A highlight from this year’s conference was a speech by the City of Madison’s Traffic Engineering Director, Yang Tao, titled “Zeroing in on Solutions: Unveiling Trends and Patterns in Crash Data Analysis.” 

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The City of Madison, an early adopter of Vision Zero, is one of the most successful cities in the Country in reducing traffic fatalities and injuries. Yang presented the findings from their work with Citian’s CRASH platform to support their traffic safety operations and leverage more grant funding than ever before. Historically, Madison had struggled with data, communication, and timeliness. Analyzing crash data to select and implement countermeasures is arduous and time-consuming, staff are busy and do not have as much time as they would like to be proactive, and there are limits on the resources (budget and staff) the City can deploy to address safety concerns. Further, constituents are deeply engaged and demanding of the traffic safety program, a good problem that nonetheless requires significant investment in addressing doubts, sharing updates, and building confidence in the City’s innovative approach. 

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To address these constraints, the city has taken a multi-faceted, technology-driven approach to improving traffic safety. Madison partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison TOPS Lab and Citian to improve crash data accuracy and correct systemic issues with raw crash data. The city has also begun to incorporate a wide variety of additional datasets in its safety analysis, such as equity data (Justice 40 Communities, US Census Data), local context data (locations of schools, parks, police stations, etc.), and roadway elements (speed limits, AADT, and more) to expand the quality and impact of their work. With this improved dataset, the City can visualize and model safety concerns better. From here, they use cutting-edge technology to develop countermeasure recommendations and review previous implementations faster than ever before. This approach not only allows the City to move faster in implementing improvements but also to evaluate the effectiveness of their investments more quickly. The city has also expanded its tools to communicate with constituents, sharing its progress through public dashboards, reports, and public presentations. 

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Yang’s presentation was selected as a finalist for the categories of “Best Practices” and “Data Visualization.” The City recently won a 2024 Transportation Achievement Award for Planning related to its work on Vision Zero. 

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