Logo image
Back
Bicycle safety in Bogotá: A seven-year analysis of bicyclists’ collisions and fatalities
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Bicycle safety in Bogotá: A seven-year analysis of bicyclists’ collisions and fatalities

Germán A. Carvajal, Olga L. Sarmiento, Andrés L. Medaglia, Sergio Cabrales, Daniel A. Rodríguez, D. Alex Quistberg and Segundo López
Accident analysis and prevention, v 144, 105596
Sep 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2020.105596
PMID: 32603927
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2020.105596View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY V4.0,  Open

Abstract

Bicycling mortality Built-environment Latin America Vision zero
•Standardized bicycling collision rates have decreased in Bogotá in the last 7 years.•Seven main geographic areas of bicycling risk were identified in Bogotá.•Risk factors associated with bicycling mortality differ by sex.•Findings support policy-making to implement targeted interventions to improve safety.•Methodology based on open-data sources to permit replication and monitoring. Road safety research in low- and middle-income countries is limited, even though ninety percent of global road traffic fatalities are concentrated in these locations. In Colombia, road traffic injuries are the second leading source of mortality by external causes and constitute a significant public health concern in the city of Bogotá. Bogotá is among the top 10 most bike-friendly cities in the world. However, bicyclists are one of the most vulnerable road-users in the city. Therefore, assessing the pattern of mortality and understanding the variables affecting the outcome of bicyclists’ collisions in Bogotá is crucial to guide policies aimed at improving safety conditions. This study aims to determine the spatiotemporal trends in fatal and nonfatal collision rates and to identify the individual and contextual factors associated with fatal outcomes. We use confidence intervals, geo-statistics, and generalized additive mixed models (GAMM) corrected for spatial correlation. The collisions’ records were taken from Bogotá’s Secretariat of Mobility, complemented with records provided by non-governmental organizations (NGO). Our findings indicate that from 2011 to 2017, the fatal bicycling collision rates per bicyclists’ population have remained constant for females while decreasing 53 % for males. Additionally, we identified high-risk areas located in the west, southwest, and southeast of the city, where the rate of occurrence of fatal events is higher than what occurs in other parts of the city. Finally, our results show associated risk factors that differ by sex. Overall, we find that fatal collisions are positively associated with factors including collisions with large vehicles, the absence of dedicated infrastructure, steep terrain, and nighttime occurrence. Our findings support policy-making and planning efforts to monitor, prioritize, and implement targeted interventions aimed at improving bicycling safety conditions while accounting for gender differences.

Metrics

12 Record Views
27 citations in Web of Science
31 citations in Scopus

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Ergonomics
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Transportation
Logo image