Data Science for Safety Critical Issues in Active Travel

Start date: 12 January 2026
End date: 11 October 2026
Value: £45,000
Partners and collaborators: Mott MacDonald and the University of Leeds Institute for Transport Studies (ITS). Project partners and key stakeholders include Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) and Transport for All (a disabled-led advocacy organization).
Primary investigator: 00983319
External primary investigator: Active Travel England
Co-investigators: Dr. Yee Mun Lee (University of Leeds), Dr. John Nellthorp
External co-investigators: Mott MacDonald

Safe street planning

The Data Science for Safety Critical Issues in Active Travel project aims to evaluate, validate, and automate Active Travel England's (ATE) framework of 16 Critical Safety Issues

(CSIs). See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/critical-safety-issues-for-walking-wheeling-and-cycling/critical-safety-issues-for-walking-wheeling-and-cycling for details. These are street layouts or conditions associated with elevated collision risks for people walking, wheeling, and cycling. By developing a robust, independent evidence review framework and a scalable geospatial data pipeline, the project bridges the gap between design guidance and network-wide infrastructure assessments, allowing local authorities to transition from reactive collision hotspot mapping to proactive safety planning.

This project delivers primary research that combines Britain's official STATS19 collision registry with Ordnance Survey data and high-resolution IoT traffic sensor. This work informs the development of ATE's "Level of Risk Framework" and a quantitative "minimum threshold rule" to prioritize investment in safer active travel schemes.