Transportation Data Equity Initiative Celebrates One Million Pathways!
Sidewalks, crosswalks, and other pedestrian pathways are essential links in nearly every trip in cities across the globe. In fact, accessible pathways are so critical to urban transportation that the Transportation Data Equity Initiative (TDEI) has been deploying advanced technologies to map them — reliably, scalably, and comprehensively — at a national scale. Recently, the TDEI reached a major milestone, having mapped one million pedestrian pathway segments, and counting.
The TDEI takes a multifaceted approach to collecting and standardizing pedestrian pathway data. The initiative emphasizes technology-enabled mapping at scale, including using artificial intelligence to analyze satellite imagery; providing game-like apps to encourage volunteers to participate; and automating the integration of existing data from transit agencies, non-profits, volunteer efforts, and local departments of transportation. These mapping efforts began in Maryland, Oregon, and Washington, but new partnerships in California, New York, North Carolina, and worldwide are rapidly broadening impact.
Every newly mapped pedestrian pathway is a step toward more efficient, affordable, and accessible transportation options for underserved communities.
Access to information about curbs, steep slopes, and other features of a sidewalk, for example, enables people with disabilities to plan their best route. While this information is especially valuable for underserved communities, it ultimately supports a variety of non-motorized travel options, as well as a variety of urban mobility assessment projects centering equity It also increases overall accountability for the public right of way, which makes the city more accessible to everyone.
For example, in the State of Washington, the King County Health Through Housing (HTH) initiative converts hotels and apartments into low-income housing to combat chronic housing insecurity. Using AI-generated predictions as a starting point, KCM partnered with the TDEI on the Pedestrian Accessibility Mapping (PAM) Project to produce detailed, standardized data to assess access to health services, grocery stores, and schools from HTH facilities. This data will not only improve AI predictions but will be used to help identify sidewalk improvement projects for the HTH residents.
The milestone of one million pedestrian pathway segments mapped is just the beginning.
With the help of data standardization and technology, the TDEI continues to accelerate the pace of mapping the urban environment in cities across the United States. Transportation agencies, app developers, and other interested parties are invited to join the effort to provide a more
accessible transportation future for all.
This data work — collecting, vetting, integrating, analyzing, and sharing — requires an interdisciplinary collaboration between data scientists, transportation engineers, planners, user experience experts, software developers and engineers, advocacy groups, and local volunteers. The TDEI has developed a centralized platform and associated tools for data management, sharing, and analytics of routable pathways data, indoor transit facilities, and on-demand transportation services. For example, AccessMap supports turn-by-turn directions that accommodate diverse mobility preferences such as avoiding steep inclines or busy streets; the TDEI system organizes and serves the underlying data to support AccessMap.
This October, we invite you to join us for the OpenSidewalks #Walktober24 and #MaptotheVote Team Challenge.
This month-long event is an opportunity to contribute to our mapping efforts while promoting civic engagement. We encourage participants to map accessible routes to polling stations and other points of interest, ensuring that everybody has access to important accessibility information necessary to plan their routes.
The TDEI is a collaboration between the University of Washington’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT) at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science, and the Center for Responsibility in AI Systems and Experiences (RAISE) at the Information School. The initiative is sponsored by the ITS4US Deployment Program, which is a $40-million effort led by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) and supported by the Office of the Secretary, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Transit Administration.
For more information on how you can get involved, please contact Anat Caspi at uwtcat@uw.edu.
