Every time a pedestrian pushes a button to cross the street, it creates a useful data point about how many people are walking through that intersection. Now, transportation planners and engineers in Oregon have easy access to that data: The newest feature we've added to BikePed Portal is a dashboard that lets you explore the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT)'s pedestrian push-button data from all over the state.

ODOT has shared this data with Portland State University (PSU) for use in BikePed Portal, so that users can see where and how people interact with pedestrian crossings at signalized intersections. The dashboard (watch a walkthrough here) is still being developed and is anticipated to eventually include data from more agencies in addition to ODOT.

WHY IS THIS DATA HELPFUL?

Many, if not all, active transportation projects rely on pedestrian volumes to measure pedestrian exposure, or the number of potential opportunities for a pedestrian to be involved in a crash with a moving vehicle. By analyzing usage patterns, practitioners can prioritize upgrades at high-demand or problematic locations, ensure compliance with ADA standards, and inform pedestrian infrastructure planning. The potential applications of push-button data are numerous, and just a couple of examples are highlighted below.

The new dashboard is a useful resource to help agencies improve signal timing, accessibility, and safety for all road users, as well as guide future investments in walkability. 

DERIVING PEDESTRIAN COUNTS 

Researchers are exploring methods to convert the push-button data into complete pedestrian counts for the transportation network. At the 2025 annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), Sirisha Kothuri, Joe Broach and Elizabeth Yates of PSU presented a study along with Mahyar Vahedi Saheli and Patrick Singleton of Utah State University on "Pedestrian Volumes from Push-Button Traffic Signal Data in Oregon: Estimating Models and Assessing Model Transferability [PDF - add link to poster)" in which they used the ODOT data, along with video recordings, to estimate pedestrian counts. They also developed a workflow to integrate pedestrian traffic counts into ODOT’s enterprise traffic data system. 

The initial research was funded by ODOT, as well as some funding support for the dashboard. Learn about the models used to calculate estimated pedestrian volumes in the final report, or watch a recorded seminar to learn more.

ODOT's research unit has also documented a use case for the data—see Pedestrian Traffic Estimation for Liquidation Costs—and is developing more.

ANALYZING PEDESTRIAN CRASHES

At Utah State, Singleton used similar data in Utah to do safety analysis. One paper examined the frequency and severity of crashes involving pedestrians, and another developed improved methods to predict crashes at signalized intersections. The research team wanted to examine whether the “safety in numbers” effect applies to pedestrian safety in the US. Both papers used push-button data as a novel data source to measure pedestrian exposure.

As pedestrian safety and accessibility continue to be top priorities in transportation planning, innovative uses of existing infrastructure—like push-button data—are opening up new possibilities for research, analysis, and informed decision-making. The addition of this new dashboard to BikePed Portal marks an important step in making pedestrian activity more visible for agencies across Oregon. By leveraging this data, planners and researchers can better understand walking patterns, identify safety risks, and ultimately create safer, more walkable communities. 

As the dashboard grows to include data from more jurisdictions, its value will only increase—offering a powerful tool to support equitable and evidence-based improvements in pedestrian infrastructure.

PARTNER WITH PSU: ADD YOUR DATA TO BIKEPED PORTAL

Cities and agencies interested in partnering across the region to improve transportation data access should reach out to our team at bikepedportal@pdx.edu. We are interested in adding more push-button data, as well as other types of nonmotorized data. 

We accept data in multiple formats (including EcoCounter API, TrafX, manual, turning movement), and convert it all into a standardized format. We offer quality control, quality assurance, and more. Learn about the services that BikePed Portal offers.

METADATA AND DOCUMENTATION

Additional resources have recently been added to BikePed Portal:

• Manual count metadata and data documentation can be found here.
• Pedestrian estimated push button documentation can be found here.
• A video tutorial for organizations interested in having BikePed Portal host their active transportation counts can be found here.

Photo by Mariakray/iStock

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is a multidisciplinary hub for all things transportation. We are home to the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), the data programs PORTAL and BikePed Portal, the Better Block PSU program, and PSU's membership in PacTrans, the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium. Our continuing goal is to produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education, seminars, and participation in research. To get updates about what's happening at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media. 

Cross-posted from Oregon State University

Research by the Oregon State University College of Engineering and Portland State University suggests a trio of roadway treatments would enable people age 65 and older to travel on foot more safely.

The research findings are important because older pedestrians are among the most likely to be killed in traffic accidents, according to the National Safety Council. In the United States in 2020 there were 709 pedestrian fatalities in the 65-74 age group – 20% of total road-user deaths in that age bracket. The project used data from Oregon collisions but is likely applicable in other areas, and it provides a framework for jurisdictions to develop their own safety recommendations, said David Hurwitz of the OSU College of Engineering.

Findings of the study led by Chris Monsere of Portland State were published in the Transportation Research Record in May 2022, "Systemic Opportunities to Improve Older Pedestrian Safety: Merging Crash Data Analysis and a Stakeholder Workshop".

Hurwitz and Monsere, whose collaborative background includes a recent update of the Safety Investigation Manual for the Oregon Department of Transportation, combed four years of Oregon crash data for locations where older pedestrians were over-represented.

“Motor vehicle crashes involving older pedestrians are more likely to result in fatality than those involving other age groups,” said Hurwitz, a transportation engineering researcher at OSU. “As a group older pedestrians are more frail, walk more slowly and are at increased risk of falling while walking. And some of those people may also have an inhibited ability to make safe road crossing decisions due to vision or hearing impairments and cognitive decline.”

After conducting a review of best practices from national and local sources, the researchers mapped those practices to the Oregon danger spots for pedestrians 65 and over and came up with the following recommendations:

• Improve visibility and illumination.
• Increase the use of left-turn traffic signals.
• Shorten crossing distances.

“Twenty percent of the crashes we looked at happened in the dark at places with limited street lighting,” Hurwitz said. “Eight percent occurred at dawn and 5% at dusk, times of day when ambient lighting is low. Better lighting at intersections and near crossing locations, rapid flashing beacons and other devices like ‘Pedestrian Crossing’ warning signs with flashing LEDs would likely help a lot.”

So would, he added, converting “permissive” left turns for drivers at certain locations into “protected” ones. Executing a permissive left turn at an intersection means watching for a break in the oncoming traffic, which has the right of way. In a protected left turn, the motorist is signaled by a green arrow that it’s safe to turn.

“In a permissive left turn, drivers can become so focused on looking for a gap in the traffic that they don’t see pedestrians,” Hurwitz said. “Increasing the use of protected left turns in locations where a permitted turn may be difficult can improve the safety of older drivers as well as pedestrians because it reduces one of the more complex driving tasks.”

He also notes that some cities including Portland and New York have been using “slow turn wedges” and “hardened center lines” as a way to enhance pedestrian safety by forcing left-turning vehicles to slow down and take a proper route.

A wedge, outlined by pylons in the intersection, makes drivers turn more sharply and thus not as fast. A hardened center line, constructed of bollards, accomplishes the same thing by preventing drivers from crossing the center line before they are supposed to.

The moves are countermeasures against the increased danger pedestrians of any age face from left-turning vehicles, which nationwide account for roughly 25% of all incidents involving a vehicle striking someone on foot.

Among pedestrians 65 and older, the proportion of serious-injury crashes happening when the person is in the roadway is greater than for pedestrians ages 25 to 64, which suggests shortening crossing distances increases their safety by reducing their exposure time.

That can be done through pedestrian islands in the median, curb extensions, raised crosswalks and road diets – i.e., reducing the number of car travel lanes in an area.

“From the perspective of universal design, a benefit is that treatments aimed at making older pedestrians safer enhance the safety of all pedestrians,” Hurwitz said. “Our main objective was identifying low-cost treatments that could be widely implemented, but looking at ways to address speeding may also help improve older pedestrian safety and should be a focus of future work.”

Jason Anderson and Sirisha Kothuri of Portland State also took part in the research, which was funded by the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

Photo courtesy of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT)

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

Despite widespread use of walking as a transportation mode, walking has received far less attention than the motor vehicle in terms of national guidance and methods to support planning, designing, and operating safe, functional, and comfortable facilities. To address this gap, the TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program funded NCHRP Project 17-87: Enhancing Pedestrian Volume Estimation and Developing HCM Pedestrian Methodologies for Safe and Sustainable Communities. Led by Principal Investigator Paul Ryus, Kittelson & Associates partnered with Portland State University and the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina to lead research to update pedestrian analysis methodologies in the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM). 

The research team created the following new products, published in 2022 and free to download from the National Academies Press:

• NCHRP Research Report 992: Guide to Pedestrian Analysis: Documents the state-of-the-practice for pedestrian volume counting, pedestrian safety analysis, and pedestrian operations analysis. A major portion of the research evaluated the effects of safety countermeasures at street crossings on pedestrian quality of service (QOS). You can also learn more about this repot by watching this short video introduction on this state-of-the-art guide.
• NCHRP Web-Only Document 312: Enhancing Pedestrian Volume Estimation and Developing HCM Pedestrian Methodologies for Safe and Sustainable Communities: New and updated HCM-compatible methodologies to evaluate the quality of networks of pedestrian facilities, and synthesized best practices for estimating pedestrian volumes and exposure:
  • A new method for evaluating pedestrian satisfaction and associated LOS at uncontrolled pedestrian crossings.
  • An updated method for estimating pedestrian delay at uncontrolled pedestrian crossings, including up-to-date information on motorist yielding rates for a wide variety of safety countermeasures.
  • An updated method for estimating pedestrian delay at signalized crossings covering a wider range of situations, including two-stage crossings, two-leg crossings, exclusive pedestrian phases, and crosswalk closures.
  • An update to the “roadway crossing difficulty” component of the HCM’s urban street pedestrian LOS method
• Two spreadsheet-based computational engines for implementing the new and updated analysis methods developed by the project
  • Signalized Crossing Pedestrian Delay Computational Engine
  • Uncontrolled Crossing Pedestrian Delay and LOS Computational Engine
• Five presentations from a peer exchange workshop:
  • Project Overview
  • Pedestrian Volume Counting
  • Pedestrian Operations Analysis
  • Pedestrian Quality of Service Analysis
  • Pedestrian Safety Analysis
• An Implementation Plan for putting this research into practice.
• Draft text to update NCHRP Report 825: Planning and Preliminary Engineering Applications Guide to the HCM to match the proposed HCM changes and incorporate a recommended approach to evaluating pedestrian network QOS

The research team included:

• Kittleson and Associates: Paul Ryus, Anusha Musunuru, and James Bonneson
• Portland State University: Sirisha Kothuri, Christopher Monsere, and Nathan McNeil
• Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina: Seth LaJeunesse, Krista Nordback, Wesley Kumfer, and Sophie Currin

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

Photo by Dmytro Varavin/iStock

Portland State University researchers Martin Swobodzinski and Amy Parker, with student co-authors Julie Wright, Kyrsten Hansen and Becky Morton, have published a new article in Frontiers in Education: "Seamless Wayfinding by a Deafblind Adult on an Urban College Campus: A Case Study on Wayfinding Performance, Information Preferences, and Technology Requirements."

The article reports on an empirical evaluation of the experience, performance, and perception of a deafblind adult participant in an experimental case study on pedestrian travel in an urban environment. The case study assessed the degree of seamlessness of the wayfinding experience pertaining to routes that traverse both indoor and outdoor spaces under different modalities of technology-aided pedestrian travel. Specifically, an adult deafblind pedestrian traveler completed three indoor/outdoor routes on an urban college campus using three supplemental wayfinding support tools: a mobile application, written directions, and a tactile map.

Results indicate that wayfinding performance and confidence differed considerably between the three wayfinding support tools. The tactile map afforded the most successful wayfinding and highest confidence. Wayfinding performance and confidence were lowest for the mobile application modality.

The simplicity of use of a wayfinding tool is paramount for reducing cognitive load during wayfinding. In addition, information that does not match individual, user-specific information preferences and needs inhibits wayfinding performance. A substantial engagement of the deafblind community in both research and development is critical for achieving universal and equitable usability of mobile wayfinding technology.

Parker and Swobodzinski have partnered on two previous projects funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), and this paper builds on findings from their research. The first project, A Comprehensive Examination of Electronic Wayfinding Technology for Visually Impaired Travelers in an Urban Environment, was completed in 2019 and provided an overview of existing mobile wayfinding technology as well as insights from focus groups with users. The second, Seamless Wayfinding by Individuals with Functional Disability in Indoor and Outdoor Spaces: An Investigation into Lived Experiences, Data Needs, and Technology Requirements, is in progress now.

Photo by Halfpoint/iStock

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

A new study launches next month, funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). Researchers at Portland State University and the University of Texas at Arlington will explore the use of crowdsourced data to estimate pedestrian counts. The project team consists of Sirisha Kothuri and Nathan McNeil of Portland State University, and Kate Hyun and Stephen Mattingly of the University of Texas at Arlington. 

WHAT ARE PEDESTRIAN COUNTS USED FOR?

"You know that saying that if you can't measure it, you can't change it? For most streets, we might have some intuitive sense of if there are a lot of people walking there or not, but we rarely have data to back it. This project will assess how crowdsourced data can help to establish the level of pedestrian activity on streets throughout the transportation network," McNeil said.

Knowing how many pedestrians or bicyclists are using a link or a network is the foundation for measuring nonmotorized travel. Count data are useful for monitoring trends, planning new infrastructure, and for conducting safety, health, and economic analyses. The lack of widely available pedestrian count data precludes meaningful safety studies, which have become critically important, especially with the nationwide increase in pedestrian crashes over the last decade.

Several automated technologies have been developed to count bicyclists and pedestrians. Many advances in counting technology are more efficient than the old person-with-clipboard method, but cost and other considerations still limit direct observation to small subsets of entire networks. However, the emergence of crowdsourced data such as Strava and StreetLight has allowed for the collection of large-scale datasets over broad areas of the network. 

WHAT WILL BE STUDIED

While several research studies have evaluated and applied bicycle data from these datasets, no study has yet looked at pedestrian count estimates from these data sources or assessed how these compare to traditional pedestrian counts and other measures of pedestrian activity, such as pedestrian actuations from traffic signals. The researchers will evaluate pedestrian data estimates from the crowdsourced data sets and explore how these can be used along with traditional count data and sociodemographic data to derive count estimates.

"The lack of pedestrian counts limits our ability to conduct safety analyses, estimate changes in demand, determine where infrastructure improvements need to be made, and quantify the benefits of walking. We hope that the findings from the study can help agencies estimate pedestrian counts on their network and use them for a variety of applications," Kothuri said.

This project is one seven new research efforts funded by the latest General Research grant from NITC. Read about the other six projects here.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Exploring the Use of Crowdsourced Data Sources for Pedestrian Count Estimations

Sirisha Kothuri and Nathan McNeil, Portland State University; Kate Hyun and Stephen Mattingly, University of Texas at Arlington

Photo by Dmytro Varavin/iStock

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.