How many drivers speed on the highway versus the neighborhood roads? How often are crashes linked to a driver failing to stop at a stop sign? On what kinds of roads do drivers most frequently run a red light? These are just a few examples of the kinds of data needed to help transportation planners build safer roads.

Now, there is a new solution from General Motors and INRIX designed to do just that. Safety View by GM Future Roads & INRIX is a cloud-based application that provides transportation officials with critical insights using crash, vehicle, vulnerable road user (VRU), and U.S. Census data, to help prioritize and measure the effectiveness of roadway safety projects and their impact on communities.

With Safety View, transportation professionals can gain access to critical safety and demographic datasets in one cloud-based application. The tool identifies hazardous roadway segments through valuable insights about elements that elevate risk and prioritize those that need the most attention. Finally, Safety View helps professionals evaluate the impact of a Vision Zero action plan with access to near real-time insights through easy-to-use visual analysis tools.

To demonstrate the benefits of Safety View, the partners recently leveraged data analytics from Safety View to assess the road network surrounding 27 Washington, D.C. schools to better understand driving behaviors in school zones. Findings from this sample study highlight the kinds of real-time insights that can be generated using Safety View’s analytics capabilities and datasets, which are customizable by geography.

For example, the data indicated that speeding and the number of crashes didn't vary much between school zone and non-school zone streets — but the severity of crashes was marginally lowered where school zone designations were present. In addition, traffic and school zone signs didn’t appear to have a large effect on slowing down speeding. Finally, speeding was more prevalent in school zones with higher percentages of students on free- or reduced-lunch programs.

While the study offers just one example of how Safety View can benefit planners, the new solution is important as government agencies work to counter the growing number of fatal crashes. Noteworthy, the recent passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes $5 billion in discretionary funds as part of the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant program. Safety View can help streamline the funding application process by providing the datasets and analytics tools in one place.