Evaluation of the Miami-Dade Pedestrian Safety Demonstration Project
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
The purpose of this study was to identify and implement a comprehensive countermeasure program that could reduce deaths and injuries among pedestrians in a large urban environment. Miami-Dade County, Florida, was selected as the focus of this study. Using pedestrian crash data from 1996 to 2001, four zones were identified within the county as having abnormally high pedestrian-crash experiences. Based on locational crash characteristics, as well as pedestrian (age, ethnicity) factors, a total of 16 different types of education, enforcement, and engineering treatments were selected and targeted to reduce pedestrian crashes specifically in the four zones, and also countywide.
A before-after study was used with three separate control groups to evaluate the effects of the combined pedestrian safety program on pedestrian crashes. A three-year "after" period was used (2002-2004). Multivariate intervention autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) time series analysis was used, along with nonparametric (i.e., Mann-Whitney U-tests) to test for statistically significant differences in pedestrian crash experiences. Results showed that, at the peak of the program effects in 2003 and 2004, the pedestrian safety program reduced countywide pedestrian crash rates by between 8.5% and 13.3%, depending on which control group was used. This effect translates to approximately 180 fewer crashes annually in Miami-Dade County, or 360 pedestrian crashes reduced in 2003 and 2004 combined. Countywide, the greatest crash reductions were found among children and adult pedestrians as a result of the program. Educational and other measures to reduce crashes involving older pedestrians showed no effect. A number of lessons learned were identified for future implementation of such a program.
