The U.S. Department of Transportation and Populus have joined forces to harness mobility data to reduce crashes and traffic fatalities.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.

Populus, the industry-leading platform for cities to manage transportation and mobility services, will partner with the U.S. DOT to identify opportunities to harness data from some of the 45 million trips it has already processed from shared bikes, electric bikes, and electric scooters to facilitate micromobility management.

The main goal of this initiative is to deliver departments of transportation with new digital and predictive solutions that decrease traffic fatalities on U.S. roads, which have increased at alarming rates, particularly among cyclists and pedestrians. Populus will work with the U.S. DOT and strategic partners to leverage big data from micromobility to reduce the risks of crashes and improve transportation safety outcomes. Populus will also use its data from representative surveys in 18 major metro areas to demonstrate the value in qualitative data collection related to safety issues. These new data sets will augment existing data sets that inform transportation safety analyses. The initiative will aggregate data in representative cities in the United States, from major metropolitan areas to more auto-oriented cities with lower population densities, to provide insight into the new data sources that can be broadly applied to different geographies.

The U.S. DOT’s Safety Data Initiative aims to evolve from retroactive to proactive analysis. By integrating existing and new data sources, the U.S. DOT hopes to identify and address emerging risks from new modes and patterns of transportation so that they can intervene more quickly to save lives. By moving towards predictive analysis, the U.S. DOT hopes to reduce the number of fatalities that occur on U.S. roads each year.

“Populus is excited to work with the U.S. DOT on the Safety Data Initiative to provide novel and actionable insights from previously untapped data sources,” said Regina Clewlow, Populus co-founder and CEO. “Identifying new exposure risks early is incredibly important to create safe and sustainable streets, especially as new modes of transportation are proliferating at a faster pace than we have seen in recent history.”

About Populus

The Populus platform helps cities and private mobility providers deliver safe, efficient, and equitable streets. Populus is a comprehensive digital solution that empowers cities to manage their streets and curbs, by leveraging new data from mobility operators (shared bikes, scooters, cars and other fleet vehicles). Founded by transportation PhDs from MIT and UC Berkeley, the Populus platform is trusted by cities around the world, from Baltimore to Tel Aviv to manage the future of transportation. Learn more at populus.ai