Monitoring Active Transportation Demand and Safety with Computer Vision

Monitoring demand for and safety of active transportation has been a challenge for decades. With a history of designing roads for cars and monitoring efforts similarly aimed at the flow of cars, transportation researchers and professionals lack system-level knowledge of active transportation. The current state of bicycle and pedestrian counting practice in most cities deploys a few costly permanent counters using inductive loops and passive radar, combined with a few days of manual peak hour traffic counts at few intersections. This neither monitors system-wide demand nor safety. However, recently several companies have produced video- and LiDAR-based sensors and multiclass tracking technology to monitor active transportation demand and unsafe events. These sensors can be installed permanently, or temporarily, and are generally lower in cost to install than other permanent counting devices. This research will leverage an ongoing Caltrans project with these sensors to validate safety metrics, and a mobile version of the sensors to collect active transportation count data for modeling system level active transportation volume in Davis, California as a pilot for other cities and agencies. It will include the prediction of network-wide travel volumes for planning the intervention purposes, and two safety metric evaluations. The final report is expected to not only provide information on the state-of-the-art in active transportation monitoring, but will have direct policy impacts by informing the Active Transportation Data program within Caltrans Traffic Operations, among other programs such as the Active Transportation Resource Center research-to-practice education elements.

• Record URL:
  • https://ncst.ucdavis.edu/project/monitoring-active-transportation-demand-and-safety-computer-vision

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $277,648.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DOT 69A355234831

  DOT 69A3552344814

  Caltrans 65A1380

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  National Center for Sustainable Transportation

  University of California, Davis
  Davis, CA  United States 

  California Department of Transportation

  1227 O Street
  Sacramento, CA  United States  95843
• Managing Organizations:

  National Center for Sustainable Transportation

  University of California, Davis
  Davis, CA  United States 

  University of California, Davis

  1 Shields Ave
  Davis, California  United States  95616
• Project Managers:

  Cliff, Sydney

• Performing Organizations:

  National Center for Sustainable Transportation

  University of California, Davis
  Davis, CA  United States 

  University of California, Davis

  1 Shields Ave
  Davis, California  United States  95616
• Principal Investigators:

  Fitch-Polse, Dillon

• Start Date: 20260501
• Expected Completion Date: 20270630
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Computer vision; Data collection; Nonmotorized transportation; Sensors; Travel demand
• Geographic Terms: Davis (California)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01987971
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: National Center for Sustainable Transportation
• Contract Numbers: DOT 69A355234831, DOT 69A3552344814, Caltrans 65A1380
• Files: UTC, RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Apr 28 2026 11:05AM