An Analysis of Pedestrian Safety and Injury Severity at Bus Stops Using the CRSS Database

Project Description

Ensuring safe pedestrian and bicycle access to bus stops is essential to the success of public transit systems. Prior studies have analyzed crash data to investigate bus stop-related pedestrian and bicyclist safety. However, most prior research assumes that all pedestrian and bicyclist crashes within a given distance of a bus stop are associated with the bus stop, which may not be true. A significant challenge in transit-related safety research is the absence of crash data that distinctly identifies stop/station-related safety incidents. Recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has begun to categorize bus stop-related crashes within the Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) and Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). This study will expand on the CPBS Year 1 project, Identifying Research Priorities to Improve Safety for Pedestrians and Bicyclists Accessing Bus Stops, which used the FARS dataset to conduct a bus stop-related pedestrian and bicyclist safety analysis. This study will analyze bus stop-related pedestrian and bicyclist safety using the CRSS database, which provides nationally representative crash data. The overarching goal is to identify bus stop-related crash characteristics and determine which factors lead to more severe outcomes.