In the United States, more than 38,000 people die every year in automotive crashes, according to the Association for Safe International Road Travel. In addition, 4.4 million are injured seriously enough to require medical attention. Road crashes are the leading cause of death in the U.S. for people ages 1-54.
Ford is launching an innovative tool that it hopes will help cities with traffic planning, thus making streets safer. Safety Insights is a web-based software tool for transportation planners and engineers that provides a detailed overview of road safety in cities. By synchronizing crash data from multiple sources and combining it with Ford’s own connected vehicle data, city planners can identify streets and intersections that could be improved to increase safety.
According to a recent post by Brett Wheatley, director of mobility businesses, Autonomous Vehicles LLC and Mobility Partnership with Ford Motor Co., Safety Insights allows city planners to analyze travel patterns and identify crash hotspots so they can prioritize countermeasures. Once a plan is developed, transportation engineers can input cost-to-implement data into Safety Insights to help scenario-plan cost savings and understand crash reduction and time-of-return predictions.
To get the word out about this new tool, Ford teamed up with Freethink, a platform dedicated to covering the biggest ideas and most groundbreaking technology, to showcase what Safety Insights can do through a series of videos. To see the first of the videos, go to https://www.freethink.com/videos/smart-transportation.
