(Academic) News Roundup: Pedestrian Safety, Traffic Collisions and Data

Some of the work I'm doing at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design revolves around pedestrian safety. I've been involved in the field of pedestrian safety in one way or another for over four years, now, and whenever I travel I am the annoying person stopping to take pictures of crosswalks and traffic signs. Needless to say, China is by far the craziest place I've ever had to think about pedestrian safety.

I'll put together a longer post with lots of photos of my observations in Chongqing, but in the mean time, here are some scary/illuminating articles and posts about the pedestrian safety situation in China. Some are super academic; others are more reader-friendly. If you find the subject of traffic collisions upsetting or boring, feel free to skip this post.

First, the problem of traffic-related deaths as an increasing phenomenon in China: The Lancet recently published an all-China issue with a wide range of global health issues. Here's their article summarizing the findings from the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study (registration required), some of which relates to the relative importance of traffic injuries compared to other causes of death. This blog post nicely reflects on the Lancet article's findings, pointing out how death from traffic injuries has jumped from 10th to 4th and discussing why it isn't just because China is doing a better job of controlling diseases that used to be ranked higher. This article, from the World Health Organization, points out the effect of increasing traffic fatalities on urban mortality rates, in particular.

Second, the more pervasive problem of data collection. How do you know if the changes you're making have any effect on safety if your data is not accurate? The debate over pedestrian crash data in China rages on: the police data, which is used by the government for official reporting, does not match the death registry data, which places the figure at twice the number of deaths from injury related to traffic collisions. Here's a super academic WHO article discussing this problem. The WSJ presents one possible explanation here, that the discrepancy exists because of differences in record-keeping and methodology. This article, also through Lancet, suggests a different explanation part-way through: 

"The inaccuracies may be due, in part, to deliberate under-reporting by traffic officers, who are rewarded with a higher performance ranking if fewer accidents occur within their jurisdictions." 

Finally, some work has been done to analyze the traffic collision data. This article does a good job of identifying some overall trends, while this article is a bit gnarlier, comparing the intricacies of pedestrian crashes in Changsha, China and Hannover, Germany, including a section entitled "Analysis of Injury Severity by Body Regions."

As a personal anecdote, I asked for pedestrian crash data on day 2 of my internship, and have continued to press for it, to no avail. To be fair, in the US, data continues to be a challenge in almost every aspect of urban planning, as well. Recently, movements like Code for America have helped launch the idea of using data for urban planning into the forefront of the profession, and I think it's only going to get better over time. I'm not sure whether China is there, yet.

ChaoTianMen, an Evening Boat Ride, and Chongqing's Cable Car

This weekend, our friend and classmate, Carlos, visited Lucia and I here in Chongqing. He's living in Chengdu for the summer, working at the Chengdu Institute of Urban Planning and Design. Chongqing and Chengdu are very close cities, and Lucia and I plan to return the visit in a couple of weeks. Having a guest gave us a chance to show off Chongqing, to see some of the tourist attractions we haven't been to yet, and to trade stories about living in central China as a foreigner.

On Saturday, we visited the Chongqing Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. They had some pretty neat scale models of the city and the region, but I won't bore you with more photos of tiny buildings. If you really want to see them, feel free to email me and I'll send them your way.

The Exhibition Hall is right under the plaza at ChaoTianMen, which is the tip of the peninsula that makes up the Yuzhong District (downtown) of Chongqing.

Away we go...

My flight boards in 10 minutes! Eeek!

I have all the essentials packed away into two small checked bags and a carry-on backpack. My next post will be from Shanghai, and hopefully accompanied by photos. 

When I arrive in Shanghai, I get to ride the Maglev from the airport to the city center. Read all about it here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train I remember learning about this technology when I was in middle school, and now I get to experience it first-hand. We live in the future!

More on the other side of the pond (they call the Pacific "the pond" too, right?) --

CR