Artificial intelligence scoured transportation network data to rank Calgary’s top 50 highest-risk pedestrian locations without traffic signals, and councillors are hoping they can put budget cash behind the fixes.
Councillors at the Sept. 1 Community Development Committee got details on the AI platform that assessed more than 17,000 intersections in Calgary and assigned them a position using a scale from 0 to 1000, with higher scores indicating greater risk.
These are locations without existing traffic signals, overhead flashers, or rectangular rapid flashing beacons. Among the data collected, 28 of the intersections had risk scores above 95, and 137 had risk scores above 90.
Based on the recommendations, roughly $6 million would need to be included in the upcoming four-year Calgary budget to implement the proposed upgrades at 26 locations.
The data that goes into the model is updated every six hours, and the model is run once a month. There’s so much data collected that it takes the program a week to run.
“There’s 2021 census data. There’s collision data, roadway geometry, so like roadway widths. If there’s presence of a median, the type of traffic signal that’s existing, weather, time of day of incident, proximity to schools, transit stops. There’s a ton of data that goes into it,” said city admin.
“Then the machine learning component is the model decides like what weights to put on those different variables, and then that’s how it’s calculating the risk score.”
Should funding be approved, the highest risk locations could have design work in 2027, with construction potentially done in 2028 and 2029, the city admin report read.
Six of the top 13 high-risk intersections were in Ward 5, and the area councillor, Raj Dhaliwal, said that he’s been telling city officials for the past two years that mobility patterns are different in his ward.
“Ward five is home to many of the newcomers, and newcomers mostly do not have cars, but they rely on our public transportation,” he said.
“People are making their way to transit stops, and often during darker hours.”
Different traffic issues in Ward 8, says Coun. Schmidt
Ward 8 had five of the top 13 high-risk locations, but it didn’t come as a surprise to Coun. Nathan Schmidt. He said the ward has high density, traffic patterns that bring a lot of non-local traffic to the area, and a high commuter content, with “people rushing to and from work.”
Schmidt said that the AI scoring is one tool for assessing problem areas, and should be used in conjunction with what they’re hearing from residents in a given area.
“What the numbers tell us is, where the risk for a negative interaction, whether you’re a pedestrian, a cyclist, or a driver, is going to happen, and that’s where largely we should start fixing things,” said Schmidt.
Schmidt was asked why city councillors are only considering cash for upgrades to 26, and not all 50 high-risk spots. He said the $6 million was what administration projected to be available for these upgrades.
“That’s a decision for us to make at budget,” he said.
“Things cost money, and so if we wanted to address everything, then we will need to make sure the money is in place to address all of those things
Councillors also heard more about the Vision Zero roadmap, which aims to continue pedestrian safety improvements to drive down injury and fatality rates across Calgary.
Included in that presentation were three different funding envelopes: $7 million, which would cover roughly 100 location interventions; $10 million, which would do 150 locations annually; and $20 million, which would cover 300 locations annually.
The committee recommended that council accept both reports for information, with the Vision Zero report including a recommendation that admin come back with a plan to accelerate safety interventions at high-risk locations.
