Spin is providing funding and support to share mobility data and tools with advocates, cities, and researchers.
StreetLight Data, Numina, Gehl, Urban Footprint, Kurb and Eco Counter among available tools for awardees.
We believe in the transformation of our streets to be safe, livable, and just places for all. We all have a right to travel without fear of injury of death, to enjoy the places we move, and to benefit from equitable access to opportunity on our streets. Advocates across the country are fighting for these rights, and we want to help.
The Mobility Data for Safer Streets initiative, or MDSS, will award partners around the country with a unique suite of data sources, software tools and physical equipment to gather, analyze, understand, and present data for streets advocacy.
Now accepting applications for Mobility Data for Safer Streets 2021. Join our webinar on May 6th to learn more and access the application here.
After a successful MDSS 2020 program, Spin is happy to announce that we will be continuing the program in 2021.
The program will run from July 1, 2021, to May 31, 2022. Interested organizations should apply here by May 24th.
In 2020, we selected non-profits who focused on transportation advocacy projects. In 2021, we are inviting proposals from partnerships which include at least two of the following:
- Transportation advocacy organization
- City partner in planning, engineering, public works, public health, etc. department
- Community-based organization, neighborhood coalition, business improvement district, etc.
- Research institution
This partnership approach will allow for increased project capacity and cross-functional collaboration across stakeholders. For example, a transportation advocacy organization or neighborhood coalition wants to advocate for a transportation project, evaluate a completed project, or study speed limits and traffic calming effectiveness. The City has not completed a full assessment or does not have the necessary data tools to do so. A university transportation/urban planning department has a research lab focused on GIS and transportation analyses. The consortium will work together to use the variety of data tools available to assess the project, collect data, and receive feedback from the community.
Please note: We will accept applications without pre-designated research partners and attempt to match to other applicants.
What can applicants expect?
Spin’s Mobility Data for Safer Streets initiative, or MDSS, offers a number of valuable benefits to winning applicants.
1. ACCESS TO UP TO FOUR OF THE FOLLOWING TOOLS:
In collaboration with Spin, the awardees will receive the data tools that best complement their project goals.
THE STREETLIGHT DATA PLATFORM
StreetLight Data is excited to offer a year’s access to their multimodal traffic data analysis platform. StreetLight Data’s web-based application consolidates and visualizes pedestrian, bicycle, car, and truck traffic patterns across North America. With on-demand historic data for before-and-after comparisons, StreetLight provides mobility planning tools used by traffic engineers, cities and Departments of Transportation. StreetLight will provide limited training and support.
NUMINA’S PLATFORM
Numina is excited to offer a year’s access to their sensors and platform which measures where and how things move at street level. Numina takes a Privacy-by-Design approach, making unprecedented intelligence accessible for urban planners, mobility companies, and real estate developers. By showing the volumes, paths, dwell times, and other behaviors of pedestrians, bicycles, different types of vehicles, dogs, bags of trash — you-name-it — Numina empowers communities with the data to design more walkable, bikeable, and equitable streets. Insights are immediately digestible in digital formats, making streets queryable and turning the physical world into a developer platform. Numina will also provide limited training and support.
GEHL’S PUBLIC LIFE SURVEY TOOL
Gehl will provide advocates with beta access to their ’Public Space Public Life’ (PSPL) digital survey toolkit. Gehl is an urban design and strategy consultancy focused on making cities for people. Their team recently developed a pioneering digital platform for planning, completing, and analyzing public life surveys. The PSPL survey, refined over decades of research and field work, is a unique tool for studying the physical and social elements of a place: how people behave in urban environments. This data can help answer important questions about designing better public spaces. Learn more here about the origins and use of this valuable toolkit.
URBANFOOTPRINT’S PLATFORM
UrbanFootprint will provide a year’s access to their urban intelligence platform. UrbanFootprint’s cloud-based software provides mapping tools and data-driven insights in urban planning, mobility, sustainability, policy making, healthcare, finance, and disaster preparedness to public agencies, private planning firms, enterprises, and academic institutions. Developed by planners with years of experience, UrbanFootprint helps organizations to quickly evaluate existing conditions, explore urban markets, analyze the impacts of future scenarios, and support transparent communication with easy-to-understand maps reporting.
KURB.IO
Kurb.io is a simple map-driven collaboration tool for cities, neighborhoods, businesses, and residents to get on the same page with how to use space. With the ease of a modern day website builder Kurb allows everyone to draw zones/shapes, lines, and drop icons that represent future plans for outdoor dining, retail, and so much more. The projects allow for real-time feedback, voting, comments, and annotations in addition to the standard planning features as well as the ability to download PNGs, PDFs, or create a shareable public link.
ECO COUNTER TOOL
Eco Counter will provide the Mobile MULTI, a bike-pedestrian count sensor, for generating accurate counts of people walking and biking on a street segment or at an intersection. The Mobile MULTI is an innovative and flexible counter, able to count and differentiate pedestrians from cyclists while being completely mobile and able to stand alone.
POPULUS MOBILITY MANAGER
Populus (https://www.populus.ai/) Mobility Manager is a leading mobility data platform for cities to manage the future of mobility. Empowering cities with access to better data insights from shared fleets of bikes, scooters, mopeds, and cars to effectively manage and evaluate new mobility programs. Cities that are powered by Populus can securely access and evaluate data, create digital policies in shared common language that drive program success, and help decision makers deliver safer, more equitable and more efficient streets to their constituents.
FORD SAFETY INSIGHTS CONNECT
Ford Mobility’s Safety Insights Connect (https://safetyinsights.ford.com/#/) is a web-based tool that provides access to aggregated and de-identified connected vehicle events, including harsh braking, acceleration, and cornering events. This data can provide insights to stay up-to-date on changes in traffic patterns and driving behavior, and “harsh” connected vehicle data has shown to be a promising surrogate for crash patterns.
2. PROGRAM COLLABORATION WITH SPIN
Spin will collaborate with awardees to ensure success of the program. This will include:
- Providing general program support for research questions and methodology
- Organizing “bootcamps” for all data platforms
- Acting as the liaison between awardees and data platforms
- Recognizing and promoting program partnership on our website, blog, and social media
- Featuring the awardees findings in a post-program report
What is the application process?
Who can apply?
To apply, please propose a partnership of at least two of the following:
- Transportation advocacy organization focused on multimodal advocacy, livable streets, community public health, mobility justice or other goals related to human-centered streets.
- City partner in planning, engineering, public works, public health, etc. department
- Community-based organization or neighborhood coalition
- Research institution focused on transportation or urban planning
Please note: We will accept applications without pre-designated research partners and attempt to match to other applicants. For this reason, we encourage research institutions interested in this effort to apply or contact us directly with their interest to participate.
How to apply
THE INITIATIVE OPENS FOR APPLICATIONS ON APRIL 20, 2021 AND WILL CLOSE ON MAY 24, 2021. THE PROGRAM WILL RUN FROM JUNE 1, 2021, TO MAY 31, 2022.
Interested organizations should apply here.
Any application must include:
- An existing or proposed project(s) you wish to use the mobility data and other tools for, as well as an advocacy target/audience (see below for criteria)
- How you propose to use the data and other tools, on what timeline, and for influencing/communicating to whom.
- How you propose to work as a consortium
- Any past experiences with data gathering and analysis
- How you propose to measure success of the use of the data tools
- How your analysis will specifically address mobility justice goals (encouraged but not required)
- Which data tools you propose to use for the project
PROJECT CRITERIA
Any consortium applying to join the initiative must have a specific project in mind in relation to which the data and tools will be used. The consortium must also have a specific advocacy target (audience) in mind, for communicating the results of the data gathering, visualization, or analysis.
Spin will consider any mobility project as long as the applicant can articulate clearly a key role for the use of better data in the project.
We consider highly viable projects to be any of the following:
- Focus on physical street re-design, with safety, livability and/or justice benefits
- Proposal of a data driven, multi-modal transportation network
- Highlight of the need for a project based on an understanding of multimodal traffic in a neighborhood.
- Study of speed limits and/or traffic calming measures on road safety
- Evaluation of a completed transportation project
- Experiencing engineering, political or community challenge, e.g. objections from traffic engineering; resistance from a political leader; or pushback from local neighbors
- In their current form, lacking consideration of or basis in analyses of multimodal traffic flows other than cars and trucks
Relevant and typical audiences/targets might include, but need not be limited to:
- Local residents and community organizations.
- Owners of local businesses, or leaders at a chamber of commerce.
- Planners, engineers, and leadership at city departments of transportation.
- Local, state, or federal politicians.
MDSS 2019-2020
Participants of the pilot Mobility Data for Safe Streets Initiative included: BikeWalkNC, Sustain Charlotte, Bike Cleveland, Walk Bike Nashville, Bike Utah and Bike Walk Provo and Denver Streets Partnership.
You can read more about each of the selected projects below:
BikeWalk North Carolina looked at the Crescent area of Charlotte, an economically and racially segregated part of the city, to measure just how much people are using bikes and other active transportation in order to show City officials that there is a need for investment in infrastructure that makes these modes safer. The data helped show officials where people were riding without adequate safe options as well as to lower some speed limits in the city.
Sustain Charlotte’s Safe Streets project focused on two thoroughfares in Charlotte, North Carolina’s North Davidson neighborhood. Sustain Charlotte worked with the community and gathered data using StreetLight to successfully advocate for the City to install a traffic-slowing curb bulbout, crosswalk, and locate a stop sign where it could most effectively calm traffic.
Bike Cleveland was able to use the tools to provide data-driven analysis to support the Memorial Bridges Loop project, which would add a comprehensive network of active transportation facilities around the city. By looking at traffic volumes on overly wide streets, Bike Cleveland was able to show that there was plenty of room to create bike lanes and other safe streets facilities without adversely impacting car traffic.
Walk Bike Nashville used the data toolset to gather quantitative evidence that speeding had increased in neighborhoods as a result of lower traffic volumes, start a traffic calming campaign, and measure the outcome of that campaign. StreetLight included Walk Bike Nashville’s project in its Safety Guidebook.
Bike Utah and Bike Walk Provo used the tools to create an in depth report on the state of bicycling in Provo. It looked at where people are actually riding and considers what types of comfortable and safe facilities should be implemented according to Provo's Transportation Master Plan.
Denver Streets Partnership (DSP) wanted to show City officials that their open streets initiative was not only getting people out of their cars and into the street for exercise and essential trips during the pandemic, but that they also liked open streets enough to see them continue past the pandemic lock downs. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data gathering, DSP has made the case for the popularity of these open streets and their continuation, though it remains to be seen what next steps will be taken.