nineteen - Road safety impacts of BRT and busway features

Summary

Introduction

Traffic accidents account for over 1.2 million annual deaths around the world, and this number is expected to increase, making road fatalities one of the leading causes of premature mortality worldwide by 2030 (World Health Organization 2013). The increase in traffic fatalities is expected to be concentrated in low and middle income countries, which are now experiencing a significant growth in motorisation. With the recent increase in the popularity of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems worldwide – over 180 cities featured some type of BRT system by 2014 – there is an opportunity to jointly tackle the traffic safety and mobility issues faced by developing world cities.

BRTs are usually implemented on high demand corridors, particularly urban arterials, which are typically the most dangerous types of roads in urban areas. Research from New York City, for instance, has shown that arterials represent only 15% of the road network in a city, but concentrate over 65% of severe crashes (Viola et al 2010) and data from the developing world indicate similar trends (EMBARQ 2014). While there is a potential concern that implementing a BRT along a busy arterial road may attract pedestrians to areas of high risk, this is also an opportunity to improve the infrastructure and achieve significant safety benefits. Evidence from BRT implementation in Latin America and Asia supports this claim (Table 19.1), as BRT systems in these different regions have shown positive safety impacts. Our research shows that the safety improvements are due to the changes to the street geometry needed to accommodate the BRT infrastructure (for example, lane removals, medians, turn prohibitions).

In this chapter, we provide an overview of the results of BRT safety impact assessments, with a brief discussion of the methodology and its challenges. We then explore the infrastructure components of BRT that contribute to the safety impacts. We conclude by discussing how safety countermeasures specific to BRT corridors can impact the system's operational performance.

Evidence on the safety impact of BRT

The traffic safety aspects of BRT systems are typically not as well understood as their better documented impacts on travel times, greenhouse gas and local pollutant emissions, or land values. However, our research shows that BRTs in Latin America and Asia have had significant positive impacts on traffic safety, reducing injuries and fatalities by upwards of 50% on the corridors where they were implemented (Duduta, Lindau and Adriazola-Steil 2013; Duduta et al 2014).