The Infrastructure-Perception Gap: Examining the Role of Transportation Infrastructure in Mediating Safety Perceptions for Active Travel

While extensive research demonstrates that perceived safety influences active travel behavior, the relationship between safety perceptions and transportation infrastructure characteristics remains inadequately understood. Traditional safety studies rely primarily on crash data, which often fails to align with how travelers perceive safe environments. This research addresses a critical gap by investigating how transportation infrastructure mediates safety perceptions among active travelers and subsequently affects their travel behavior and route choices. The study poses three key questions: (1) How does transportation infrastructure shape safety perceptions of people walking, biking, and rolling? (2) How, and to what extent, does infrastructure affect travelers' mode and route choice decisions? (3) Do more complete streets enhance safety perceptions and actual travel safety? It builds on the team's existing computer vision analyses of streetscape factors and travel behavior studies across Atlanta, Berlin, Boston, and Chicago, to develop person-centric measures of perceived safety. The approach leverages established databases and tools for characterizing transportation infrastructure and built environments, along with discrete choice models representing travel behavior decisions. Unlike previous studies that included safety-related variables without isolating perceived safety measures, this research will explicitly examine the relative importance of transportation infrastructure versus broader built environment factors.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $125,358.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552344815

  69A3552348320

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  University of Texas at Austin

  Austin, TX  United States  78712
• Performing Organizations:

  Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

  790 Atlantic Drive
  Atlanta, GA  United States  30332-0355
• Principal Investigators:

  Basu, Rounaq

• Start Date: 20260801
• Expected Completion Date: 20270831
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Infrastructure; Mode choice; Nonmotorized transportation; Perception; Route choice; Safety
• Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 02001771
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Center for Understanding Future of Travel Behavior and Demand
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552344815, 69A3552348320
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Sep 4 2026 3:22PM