Navigating the path to safer roads in the US and beyond

00:05

Davion Ford 

Welcome to Better Cities by Design, a podcast brought to you by Arcadis, where we talk to change makers who are working to make our cities better places for people to live, work and play. I'm your host, Davion Ford. You're listening to a special episode of the pod. This time, instead of visiting a specific city, we're going to explore a topic which is important for all cities, namely road safety. I recently had the privilege to sit and talk with an esteemed panel of experts on this topic from the United States. Over the course of our expansive discussion, we talked about the prevalence of traffic fatalities and what can be done to prevent them, we explore the potential of data and technology to enhance road safety, as well as the provocative question of whether the solution is to simply ban cars from cities. Stay tuned for my conversation with Laura Chace from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, Brian Cronin from the US Department of Transportation, and Ramin Massoumi from Arcadis.

01:12

Davion Ford 

There are many big-picture challenges facing our global cities, things that we've discussed in previous episodes of the pod, like climate adaptation, so that cities can better cope with the impacts of climate change, or how cities can benefit from promoting active modes of transportation like walking and cycling, or the pressing need for more affordable housing in urban areas. We're going to explore another important topic, road safety, specifically with a focus on the United States, where traffic accidents remain a significant cause of death. In 2023 more than 40,000 people died in motor vehicle crashes in the United States. In fact, in the US, car crashes is the number one cause of death for people under the age of 55 and this is a persistent issue in the US, where far too many people are losing their lives on roadways despite the advancements we've seen in data and technology, and this contradiction was the impetus behind this episode. We wanted to understand what's being done to address this problem in the US and what more can be done to make American roads safer, and we're keen to explore how technology can help. To do so, we've convened a panel of experts on the topic. Laura Chace is President and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. ITS America is a leading voice advocating for the scaled deployment of innovative transportation technology through policy, thought leadership and developing a diverse workforce. The organization is working to reimagine how we think about road safety and has a vision of a better future transformed by transportation technology and innovation. Brian Cronin is Director of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office at the Federal Highway Administration, part of the US Department of Transportation. Brian and his colleagues conduct research and develop and implement intelligent transportation systems to improve the safety and mobility of people and goods. And Ramin Massoumi is Global Solutions Director Mobility and Connected Highways at Arcadis, where he works to harness digital technology to create sustainable data-led connected transportation solutions helping to move people and goods around safely and efficiently.

03:33

Davion Ford 

Hello everyone. Welcome to Better Cities by Design. You've all joined this discussion because you're experts in road safety. Let's start by having each of you introduce yourselves and tell our listeners why you're so passionate about this topic. I'll go to you first. Laura.

03:48

Laura Chace 

Hi. Well, thanks so much for having me here today. My name is Laura Chace. I am the President and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, which we might refer to today as ITS America. And I'm really passionate about road safety for a couple of reasons: number one, I am also a mother of three children, including two teenagers who are now drivers, and that I really see opportunities for us to improve safety by incorporating emerging technologies in a more holistic way, to basically do things differently than we have in the past, to make meaningful benefits and safety. Everybody should be able to return home from school, from work, from a trip to the grocery store safely, and that's why I'm passionate about it.

04:36

Davion Ford 

Over to you, Brian.

04:38

Brian Cronin 

Hello everyone. My name is Brian Cronin. I'm the director of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office at the US Department of Transportation. So happy to be here today. US DOT created the safe system approach after adopting a vision zero policy: zero deaths or severe injuries, is a goal for all road users. We really think that we need a holistic approach and view to road safety and recognize that humans do make mistakes. And so me, personally, we all know somebody that has died or been seriously injured in a roadway crash, and it's just unacceptable. I think my office, the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office really plays a key role as we think about technology and adopting, in particular vehicle to everything, or V2X technology, it's one of the key solutions. And I think we need to be accepting and bringing in technology, because people make mistakes, and this technology can save lives. And

05:39

Davion Ford 

Last but not least, Ramin.

05:42

Ramin Massoumi 

Thank you, Davion, great to be on the show. My name is Ramin Massoumi with Arcadis. I am the Connected Highways Global Solution Director. The passion behind road safety, I think we all as users of the system, both drivers, walking and bicyclists of the system are impacted by the conditions of the roadway on a daily basis. Similar to Laura, I have three kids, all three of them are teenager-ish, all driving, utilizing the network, and we've all had no people that have been impacted by safety, have been hit, have been injured on the roadways, so I look at it as I have an opportunity within Arcadis working with colleagues and stakeholders across the system to try to make a change to improve the conditions of the roadway and improve travel.

06:36

Davion Ford 

Thank you all for that. My first question is actually to you, Laura, but then, gentlemen, feel free to jump in after she shares. Laura, the question is, are transportation networks in cities becoming safer over time or not?

06:49

Laura Chace 

So my answer to that would be, in the United States, no, they have not been. Historical trends have actually shown a real increase in fatalities on our roadways. We've seen a very small, and I mean very, very small decrease in the past year, but overall, the numbers are much higher. They're the highest they've been, right, for about the past five years. So we're looking at around 42,000 people a year dying on our roadways. And so I would say that we need to be doing more. We need to be doing different things. We need to be thinking differently about how we actually provide road safety to all users than we have in the past. And I think we have a lot of new tools through technology that can be applied to actually bend that curve in the right direction.

07:41

Davion Ford 

That seems pretty clear-cut, that the situation's not necessarily getting better right now. Gentlemen, do you have anything to add to that?

07:48

Ramin Massoumi 

The addition I have is that we did a study across multiple countries on three continents, Europe, Australia, and the US. And the results differ by country and by continent. There are countries in Europe where we see overall improvements, but once you start peeling the layers off, I think the common area that we see is vulnerable. Road users seem to be at the highest risk, and where we see the numbers increasing across the board in terms of crashes and deaths. So the trends both the US and across the globe, I think vulnerable road users are seeing the greatest impact based on the study we did.

08:32

Davion Ford 

Let me just jump in and ask you if you can maybe give us an operational definition for that term, vulnerable road users.

08:38

Ramin Massoumi 

Sure. Yeah. Vulnerable road users are essentially pedestrians, bicyclists. As we've moved to a more active transportation phase, it's those that are utilizing the sidewalks, the crosswalks, the bike lanes, et cetera.

08:54

Brian Cronin 

Yeah, just kind of adding in, as Ramin and Laura indicated, according to the World Health Organization, the US is really woefully behind our peer countries when it comes to safety. And so one of the real opportunities through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is the resources that are available right now to really start driving down that number so everyone gets home safely. So there's $6 billion in the safe streets and roads for all programs. So just really thinking about we're at this point where we recognize this is not an acceptable number, but there's resources now to really drive home that opportunity to change.

09:33

Davion Ford 

Just sort of ask you, what's your opinion about the relationship between speed and safety on roads, and I'm curious what all of you think about whether or not this is the most important safety concern.

09:45

Brian Cronin 

It's a critical concern and issue, exceeding the posted speed limit or driving too fast for conditions, really contributes to 30% of all traffic fatalities. It's a cross-cutting issue with severe consequences. And we talked a little bit about vulnerable road users. And so if a vulnerable road user was hit by someone driving 20 miles per hour, there's a chance of surviving that crash. Once it gets to 40 or 45 miles per hour, it's really not possible. So speed is really playing a critical factor in the last recent times. If you're driving in excess of the speed limit, it's played a quarter of the traffic deaths, killing nearly 100,000 people in the US over the past decade. It's the single most important indicator for road safety, and we're trying to address speeding and achieve safe, appropriate speed limits, and it's a complex issue involving engineering, driver behavior, education and enforcement. It really takes all of us to really think about it, acknowledge the issue and look towards appropriate relationship of speed and safety.

10:55

Laura Chace 

I agree with Brian wholeheartedly that speed is a big problem on our roadways, and that it certainly the higher the speed, the more severe the crash and the injury and the resulting potential brutality. I think that it's a very important concern, but not the only concern, because when you look at a city, particularly a city environment, you have a lot of different road users. You have a lot of different people interacting in different ways. And one of the, I think, most important safety applications that we should be deploying is what Brian mentioned earlier, which is called vehicle-to-everything communications, or V2X communications. And in simple terms, what that does is it sends messages wirelessly to all road users for situational awareness. So for example, if I'm a driver coming up to a stoplight and taking a left turn, it could alert me that there's a cyclist coming up on my left that I cannot see. So it gives you alerts from different road users outside of your line of sight, which gives you more time to react and to make safer decisions. And so I think even when you have a situation where speeding may not be the main concern, you do have dangerous potential situations that could be avoided or even mitigated if you have a system in place to allow all road users to communicate safety critical information to each other.

12:19

Ramin Massoumi 

I think, as both Brian and Laura have mentioned, speed is definitely a big contributor to the road conditions and the safety issues. But I think there's other factors also, such as distracted driving or impaired driving, that continues to be an issue. We see that a major issue in the US, the US, some of it, maybe it's related to type of vehicles we drive with automatic cars in that we have a lot of distracted drivers, drivers looking at cell phones. I observe that myself, even in my small neighborhood, all the time. So that in itself, that distracted driving or impaired or driving under the influence, those all add now you mix that in with speed that really causes a doubling or tripling the impacts it has on roadway safety that I think is an issue on the vehicle side. Then we have on going back to vulnerable road users you have especially with the adoption of E-bikes. E-bikes move much faster, and we see some of these issues, especially not only in the US, but outside of the US. E-bikes that move faster, not all countries have a helmet culture, so now you're traveling 25 miles an hour in a bicycle, 30 miles an hour without a helmet. A collision there is more impactful, unfortunately. So you start adding these, and cumulatively, it results in an increased number of significant injuries or deaths on the roadways

14:01

Davion Ford 

You must be partly speaking about the situation that we have here in the Netherlands, because that rings very, very true to me as a cyclist here in Amsterdam, and there is no helmet-wearing culture here. The advent of the E-bike has added a, let's say, a level of perilousness to being out, even in very good bike infrastructure, it has added to the danger, and you're seeing more and more signs of these types of collisions. Laura, there's a significant role for policymakers to play in making roads safer. So when it comes to policies, what are some of the challenges and opportunities that you see?

14:37

Laura Chace 

So when it comes to policy, I actually had the opportunity to testify in front of our US Senate recently, and this was the message that I shared: that we actually have a reactive approach to safety generally in this country from a policy standpoint, and what I mean by that is that our standard approach for decades has really relied on making safety improvements only after traffic deaths have occurred, right? So death occurs, and then we do an assessment and then determine where to make a change or improvement. And today, we actually have tools that allow us to be proactive, so we don't have to actually wait for that death to occur, to understand that there's a safety problem on our roadway. And examples include using data and artificial intelligence to be able to determine here's an area where I see excessive speeding, where I see hard braking. You know, there are certain indicators of driving behavior that we're now able to see on an aggregated, anonymized basis, so that agencies can actually determine and have better information about what's happening on their roadways to determine potential dangerous areas and make those improvements proactively before a death occurs. And so this idea that I mentioned at the beginning of really looking holistically at how we can use technology solutions to improve safety, really is foundational for me in this idea that we can move from a reactive approach to unsafety to a proactive approach on safety by incorporating these tools into our policy decisions, into our planning, into our programmatic areas. And I'll give you just one other quick example, really quickly, the Complete Streets concept has been around for over 20 years. And you know, I'd say all transportation practitioners, I think, you know, really support complete streets. The idea is that the street is really designed for all types of road users, not just vehicles, but the Complete Streets concept is really grounded only in the physical infrastructure. So you have a roadway, you have a bike lane, you have a sidewalk, and we believe that a Complete Street has a digital layer that really enhances your understanding of that environment and your ability to actually make it dynamic through the use of technology tools, and in doing so, you can actually create a safer environment for all road users.

17:09

Ramin Massoumi 

To add exactly to what Laura said, I think there needs to be a change, and we're seeing this happening of taking that proactive approach and identifying where high-risk locations are, and again, high risk could be defined based on areas where there is sudden braking, sudden acceleration, increased usage of phone movement in the vehicle. There's lots of different factors that could be looked at and looked across both urban and rural environments, and utilizing that data to do that proactive evaluation you now are identifying and mitigating that before crashes occur. That is really going to be critical as we move to the next generation of trying to improve roadway safety.

18:02

Brian Cronin 

So just kind of adding into this topic, the Department of Transportation released the National Roadway Safety Strategy in 2022 which is a form of policymaking and guidance to educate the community. But another form of policymaking is where we choose to invest our resources. And so, building on what Laura and Ramin were talking about, we issued the intersection safety challenge. We recognized that intersections were a major problem area that technology is available using artificial intelligence and detection technologies, we could better understand where crashes are happening and provide digital alerts and warnings to travelers, and so we launched this $15 million challenge in a new, innovative way to improve safety. And so it's really exciting. We had over 120 entities apply to the challenge, and thinking about how they could apply technology, we picked 15 early winners, and now we're into stage two of this challenge where the 15 entities are competing for awards of a million dollars. And so it's really exciting. And I think sort of policy making. You can really think about it from, you know, big policy regulation guidance, but you can also think about it for how we choose to invest in research programs.

19:19

Davion Ford 

That is a perfect segue into my next question, actually. And we're gonna give each of you a chance. So we'll go Brian, Ramin, and then to Laura. The question is, in your opinion, what are the most impactful things that can be done to make a city's roads and transportation network safer?

19:37

Brian Cronin 

Yeah, as Laura indicated, and kind of building off that thinking about the digital and technology layer that can be added into a street network. There's already power and technology at traffic signals. There's already people thinking about video cameras and other sensors that are out there, but as we apply artificial intelligence and machine learning tools we could, really, without compromising anyone's privacy or concerns like that, understand where there is risk situations happening, vulnerable road users we mentioned earlier, nearly 20% of the 42,900 people who died in 2021 so really thinking about if you could share that there was a person in a crosswalk and there was a person approaching there was, let's say they were behind a school bus, and you couldn't see that there was someone in that crosswalk and you're trying to pass, if you had that digital information communicated into your vehicle, you would know that there's someone there, and you wouldn't take that right turn yet. You'd wait. And so that's just an example. I was biking the other day, and literally, was coming up a car did not have their turn signal on, and next thing you know, I was right next to them, but they started turning right. And luckily, we're going at very slow speed so we could all stop. But those are those situations where, if there was connected infrastructure vehicle to everything, we could really provide alerts and warnings to help make the system safer.

21:12

Davion Ford 

Laura, do you have thoughts you'd like to contribute?

21:15

Laura Chace 

Well, I'll plus one to Brian's comments, because I agree with all of them. And then I will also say I think it's really important that cities really look to understand who's traveling on certain roadways and what is context appropriate for that roadway and the road users. So for example, a bike lane was put in in my community on an arterial roadway with a speed limit of 45 miles per hour. Now you can have a really robust debate over is that the right roadway to put in a bike lane? Right? Where the traffic is going 45 miles per hour is there another roadway that would have been more appropriate for that use? You know, I think there are pros and cons, obviously, to all of these decisions. But I think really thinking about what's the context-appropriate solution is important, because sometimes you end up with your adhering to the letter of the policy, right? You might be complete creating a complete street, but is that complete street actually usable and safely usable by those who need to use it in different ways, right? Whether biking, whether walking, whether driving, etc. So I think that's really important.

22:29

Davion Ford 

Great. So there's a school of thought out there, which is, you know, I think becoming more and more popular, that the best thing that we can do to make cities safer, from a transportation standpoint, is to remove all cars from our cities. So what's your view on this? I'd like to hear from all of you what your view is on this standpoint.

22:48

Ramin Massoumi 

I think a well designed community or city really incorporates all modes, you still will need some element of vehicles driving on the roads, be it delivery or other especially those that might be handicapped or impaired, might need some assistance, but you also have, as you want to improve the livability of your community, need to provide a safe environment for vulnerable road users. So I think the ideal community is one that really touches all modes and allows all modes to travel safely and efficiently, and as Laura was just highlighting, ensuring that the design of that infrastructure matches with the context of how it is being utilized. Now you overlay the technologies we've talked about, the V2X technologies that combination with the proper layers of education and enforcement, that's where you really build up a true safe city or safe community. I don't think we have to go as extreme of limiting one type of usage, there is a proper integration of all modes we can bring in, but it really requires a combination of proper engineering, proper education and the appropriate level of enforcement.

24:17

Laura Chace 

I have a little bit of a maybe unique perspective on this. So I think that it is a little bit dangerous to start talking about getting rid of cars in cities, because I think you lose a large segment of the population who might need to rely on a vehicle. And my example of that is, again, I have three children. When my children were young, when I had three children at the age of four, it's not a hop, skip and a jump for me to get those three children right on perhaps public transit, with perhaps groceries, having to cart dry cleaning or other things that other times women have to do as part of their daily responsibilities that involve caretaking. So, extrapolate this too to whether you're a female or male, and you have to take care of an elderly person and you have to get them around. That can be very difficult on our public transit and other systems, right? You're not going to jump on a scooter with an elderly person who you know is non ambulatory, and so I think you really have to think about the people who have different needs, not to mention, obviously, people who have a disability or mobility limitation who might need access to a vehicle. And then finally, I'll just say that there is a concept of time poverty, right? So the longer it takes for somebody to access jobs and essential services, that is a real cost to them and their ability to be upwardly economically mobile in our society. And so if the only option, or perhaps options that take you longer to achieve what you need to achieve, whether that to get to work, whether that's to pick up your kids, whether that's to get to the doctor's office, then you're actually creating, you know, a disadvantage for those people, because they're actually losing time, which has a real cost to it. So I think it's a lot more complicated than just saying, you know, cars are bad and we shouldn't have cars in cities. I think we need to think of it much more holistically, as Ramin mentioned.

26:20

Brian Cronin 

Continuing on the holistic conversation, I mean, that's really why the National Roadway Safety Strategy, we really talk about safer people and thinking about how we encourage safe and responsible driving and behavior. I mean, just yesterday, I was driving, and there was a family with a driver, and they had like seven kids, none of them buckled in the car. I can't tell you I've ever seen that before, but I was in shock, and so that still happens. And so how are we going to educate people about, you know, proper car use and being safe, but then we have safer roads and just designing the roadway environment to account for behaviors and to encourage safe travel, thinking about the vehicle and expanding the availability of vehicle systems and features that prevent crashes in their use, thinking about speed, which we already talked about, and post crash care, like, can we get response to crashes as fast and as quickly as we can? Because crashes do happen, and we recognize that happens. And so I think there is this balance of, what Laura talked a lot about is the other things that make a community robust and strong. It is safety is at the forefront. But, you know, providing people mobility and choice and options that meet the needs that they have is really important. So we have to balance all of that. And I think that from a holistic view thinking about safety from these different viewpoints will really help cities consider a purchase.

27:46 

Davion Ford  

So Brian, it strikes me that it might be impossible to have a perfectly safe transportation system anywhere, given all of the variables, all of the human beings involved in the network. Is this the correct way of thinking about things or over time, and with the use of technology that we've touched on quite a bit in the episode, do you believe that we will ever be able to have perfectly safe roads? 

28:10 

Brian Cronin  

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think that the community is really thinking at heart about different solutions and making progress and thinking about the impacts. Just recently, in Georgia, there's a community that equips school busses with vehicle to everything technology because students were not getting to school on time, and thinking about how they could have real time signal information tied into these school busses allowed them to improve and decrease their travel time by 13 and a half percent, and so that resulted in them getting to school on time, and this population that they were serving that meant they were able to get breakfast at school, that if they arrived late, they would not have that opportunity. I've talked recently and some other communications in Utah, where vehicle everything technology was used to equip snow plows with communication to traffic signals as well. And in this situation, they're allowing the snowplows to plow the roads twice as fast as when that technology didn't exist. If you think about that, that opens unsafe road faster, which will undoubtedly improve safety. But then you think about it from the economy, and I like to joke around, it gets me to ski slope faster. So, you know, I brought these opportunities up because I think the community recognizes technology as an opportunity area to improve safety, and they're taking on risk to try and be the first adopter, and the department is working with the community to reduce all the uncertainty and enable vehicle to everything technology on a wide variety of other IoT solutions to be deployed so.  

30:00 

Ramin Massoumi  

Just to add to what Brian said, the fact that the topic of roadway safety is so high up in the conversation, and every entity, agency, private company, to public agencies you speak with, it is definitely top of mind, top of conversation. There's funding around it. There is research, quite a bit of research and product development around it. There's a number of startups that are looking to tackle this. There's a number of established organizations that are looking to tackle this problem, from both urban environments at the intersection level to the rural straightaway sections. Collectively, I think the community has come together to try to tackle this problem. So I do truly think we are heading in the right place, going the right direction, and coming up with solutions and approaches. The work that US DOT has done is amazing in terms of bringing emphasis to this. You combine that with the work around land use planning and developments that thinks about the movement of people, not just vehicles, but the movement of people safely. You combine this together, I do truly think we're heading in the right way, and hopefully sooner than later, we're going to see a turn in the numbers and a reduction in number of crashes and severe injuries and deaths on the roads.  

31:31 

Laura Chace  

So I think that we can get there to zero deaths if we incorporate technology holistically in the process. And that includes what Brian mentioned V2X communications, which I do want to mention on this discussion. NHTSA had several years ago, estimated that V2X communications, if deployed at scale, can mitigate up to 80% of unimpaired crashes. That's a huge number. That is an enormous impact, positive impact to safety, but that really takes, as Brian mentioned, early leaders who really can show that they're deploying these technologies and show results and get others to do the same and deploy it really at scale nationwide. We really appreciate all the work that Brian and his team at the US Department of Transportation has done and is doing to provide that certainty and that leadership, because it is absolutely critical that V2X technologies are a part of this solution. But it's not just V2X, and as we've mentioned before in the discussions today, it really involves a suite of technologies that are all complementary in different ways. It includes automation and vehicles, which we already see a lot of partial automation that's Driver Assist, things like lane departure warning, lane keep assist, automatic emergency braking. It also includes using data and AI right to better understand what's happening on our roadways and then proactively address it so that we can be more proactive about safety. I do want to really quickly mention that in for example, in rural areas and in Iowa in particular, over 50% of fatal crashes are from lane departure. So in rural areas, that's a real problem, but yet, we have technology tools today that are being applied and can be applied to actually mitigate that and reduce those fatalities. So that's why, those are some of the examples of why I believe we can get there, but only if we really incorporate technology in our policy, in our planning and how we operate our streets and transportation network.  

33:39 

Davion Ford  

All right, so first to you, Ramin, then Brian and to Laura. My final question for you is, what's on the horizon? What will the future of our transportation networks look like from a safety standpoint? 

33:52 

Ramin Massoumi  

I think the future is really exciting and bright when we look at all the various technologies that are being introduced and available to us today, in rolling out, in improving safety, everything from autonomous vehicles, as those get rolled out and adoption increases, to V2X technologies, all these will enhance awareness of the drivers of potential risks around them, technologies could provide information to bicyclists or pedestrians about imminent risk around them. So to me, the future is really these technologies helping the roads become safer for all modes, all users, and improve the movement of people and goods.  

34:39 

Brian Cronin  

Yeah, so there's a wide array of proven safety countermeasures, which whether they're in a vehicle or in the infrastructure that are being implemented from vehicle to everything to automation. I think the key turning point right now is the ability and need to communicate with our local leaders, and our states, and the public about what these technologies can do, communicating with them in a way they can understand and want this technology in their community as an opportunity to save lives. I'm thrilled, we recently just launched an effort with ITS America to look at vehicle to everything technology and communicating with local leaders. This event here, we're doing and being able to communicate why technology matters and it needs to be part of the safety solution is really at a tremendous point that thinking about all the tools we have to communicate effectively is going to be critical. 

35:35 

Laura Chace  

So I'll say two words, connected and integrated and connected allows you to communicate, as we've been talking about so it allows you to communicate data and information between road users, which improves safety and, quite frankly, improves the efficiency of the system and your ability to move within the system and then integrate it. We need to ensure that we're integrating different modes, right? When I leave my house, I don't think about the different jurisdictions or silos. I say I'm going to leave my house, I'm going to get in my car, I'm going to drive to the metro, I'm going to take the metro, I'm going to get, right? I might get off. I might then take a bike share. We need to integrate all those nodes for the consumer so it's seamless, easy and safe.  

36:19 

Davion Ford  

That's great. Thank you all for your time today, this has been a really fascinating and just such a highly relevant topic. And I'm sure that our listeners will agree. Laura, Brian and Ramin, thank you for joining Better Cities by Design. 

36:32 

Brian Cronin  

Thank you. 

36:32 

Ramin Massoumi  

Thank you. 

36:32 

Laura Chace  

Thank you. 

36:33 

Davion Ford  

That's it for this episode of the show. A big thank you to Laura, Brian and Ramin for joining the show to share their thoughts about how to make roads safer. Please stay tuned for future episodes as we continue to bring change makers to the table who are driving progress in urban development. And if you haven't already done so, be sure to subscribe and check out our other episodes. I'm Davion Ford, and you've been listening to Better Cities by Design, a podcast brought to you by Arcadis, the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. You can learn more by visiting our website, arcadis.com or by following Arcadis on LinkedIn or Facebook. And please, stay curious, get inspired, and remember the future belongs to those who dare to make a difference in the cities we call home.