The discussion highlights those bicycle crash hotspots in Glasgow, Scotland and briefly considers possibilities to increase overall safety for cyclists. Data were derived from all crashes reported on public roads in the UK between 2005 and 2014. The workflow and tools used to develop the final map are also discussed below. In all, this study intends to provide a framework for understanding where problematic traffic intersections are for cyclists in Glasgow based on the number of bicycle crashes.
The STATS19 police data was used in this study which includes all reported bicycle accidents that resulted in a personal injury occurring between 2005 and 2014 and does not account for changes made at the infrastructure level, if any, to address road user safety. This study could be furthered with an evaluation of road user safety before and after changes made to the local transportation infrastructure during the study period to determine if the changes were successful in addressing road user safety.
The final map shows 922 bicycle crashes reported to the police between 2005 and 2014. The total number of bicycle crashes within Glasgow is 1,143.
GLASGOW CITY BICYCLE CRASH DENSITY BETWEEN 2005 AND 2014
Glasgow city officials should consider the places where injuries have occurred more often, as areas of safety concern if safety interventions have not already succeeded.
Hotspot areas highlighted by the STATS19 data include:
- Argyle St in Finnieston
- North Street and Sauchiehall Street
- Dumbarton Road in Partick
- Hyndland and Great Western Road
- Great Western Road between Cromwell St and Napiershall Street
- W George Lane*
- Finnieston Quay, A814, and The Cylde Arc junction
- Edmiston Dr and Paisley Road West Junction
- Edmiston Dr and Helen St Junction
- Helen St and Paisley Road West Junction
- Barrhead Rd, Brockburn Rd, Braidcraft Rd, and Peat Rd Junction
- Barrhead Rd, Pollokshaws Rd, and Thornliebank Rd Junction
- B768, Algie St, Millbrae Rd, Battlefield Rd, Langside Rd junction*A higher density of crashes on W George lane is interesting because it is unlike other areas. It is not a large junction or street with high traffic volumes. It is a small back alleyway in the central district.
Workflow
This study used the STATS19 road accident with injury reports produced by police between 2005 and 2014. Developed from the STATS19 reports, the Vehicles0514 and Accidents0514 datasets provide a detailed account of the conditions involved with each reported accident via the aggregation of STATS19 reporting forms. The STATS19 forms act as a framework to detail each reported accident so researchers can analyze road safety more in-depth. More information on the STATS19 data on these data can be found here.
The Vehicles0514 and Accidents0514 data are well suited to map the concentration of bicycle crashes in Glasgow. The Vehicles0514 data includes information on vehicle type, whereas the Accidents05114 data includes geospatial information useful to project the crashes onto a map. The first step included merging the Vehicles0514 with the Accident0514 dataset to give each vehicle crash a spatial reference point. The statistical computation and graphing environment R was chosen to carry out this merge, and subsequently, partitioning the bicycle crashes from the general dataset. The final output provides all UK bicycle crashes that resulted in personal injury reported to the police between 2005 and 2014 with spatial reference points in .csv format.
QGIS was chosen to visualize the concentration of bicycle crashes in Glasgow, using an Open Street Map base layer. The dataset created in R was imported into QGIS and afterward clipped according to a Glasgow political bounty. The final map’s extent included the central, west side, and south side districts of Glasgow City.
To finish the map, we overlaid a concentration layer (heatmap) wherein the “heat” multipliers depended on the number of crash points within a 150m radius. The areas that experienced the most crashes are highlighted in blue. The final map visualizes the overall concentration of bicycle crashes in Glasgow City between 2005 and 2014.
Urban Data Cyclist 