At the 2026 Safe Mobility Conference in Seattle, one message came across clearly: Agencies are invested in creating a system that supports safe, multimodal travel for all users. Across sessions, speed management remained central alongside growing interest in novel data sources to better contextualize crash data.
At the Safe Mobility Conference in Seattle this year, the conversation around transportation safety felt familiar while also signaling a stronger emphasis on actionable outcomes. Agencies remain deeply committed to reducing crashes and serious injuries and are exploring new ways to advance that work. Across the conference’s sessions, there was a clear focus on expanding the Safe System Approach in practice through strategies that build on existing efforts while exploring new tools, data sources, and centering community needs and travel experiences.
For RSG, that broader framing matters. Safety extends well beyond what happens at a crash location. It includes speed, exposure, access, and whether people feel comfortable walking, biking, riding transit, or travelling independently. The conference reinforced that advancing this work requires better data and new ways of using it. And
Speed management remains central, but agencies want better ways to measure change
If there was one theme that clearly stood out at the conference this year, it was speed management. Speakers focused on how to measure speed changes, identify locations where drivers are abruptly slowing down or speeding up, and evaluate the effectiveness of infrastructure interventions in reducing unsafe speeds. There was a palpable and growing interest in measuring the effectiveness of infrastructure interventions by comparing vehicle speeds before and after implementation, or across locations with and without such interventions.
Rather than relying on speed as a static metric, agencies are increasingly looking for ways to track change over time and link those changes to safety outcomes. At RSG, we are seeing a broader shift toward using data not just to describe conditions, but to understand whether interventions are working and where additional action may be needed. Agencies are increasingly seeking data-driven ways to show what is working, where it is working, and whether investments are delivering safer outcomes.
That emphasis creates an opportunity for stronger transportation safety analytics, and raises an important question: What data are agencies using to understand the effectiveness of speed management strategies, and where are the gaps?
Centering community needs and lived experience in transportation safety
Safety interventions do not exist in isolation. They affect how people experience the transportation system and whether they’re addressing communities’ needs. Community engagement remains an important part of safety work, and ensuring people’s needs are heard is a critical part of any project.
Several sessions at this year’s Safe Mobility Conference highlighted both the importance of and the challenge inherent in this work. Agencies are finding that traditional engagement methods do not always capture the full range of perspectives, particularly from people who are most affected by safety risks but are less represented in public processes. In response, practitioners are experimenting with new approaches such as online engagement tools, targeted outreach, and integrating qualitative feedback into safety prioritization to better reflect community needs in decision-making.
This is where transportation safety overlaps directly with mobility, access, and public trust. A safer street is not one with fewer crashes. It is one where people feel comfortable walking, biking, or crossing, and where design decisions reflect how communities actually use and experience the system. That broader understanding of safety opens the door to stronger qualitative research and more effective community engagement. Quantitative analysis paired with qualitative research, where individual voices from the community are heard, can ensure safety investments aligned with lived experiences.
An emerging opportunity: understanding perceived safety and unmet travel needs for vulnerable road users
One of the most revealing takeaways from the conference was the opportunity to better understand perceived safety and travel patterns, especially among vulnerable road users. While there was significant focus on novel data sources, many of these sources cannot capture how people perceive safety on their travel routes, and how those perceptions influence whether, when, and how they travel.
This presents a meaningful area for growth, especially for vulnerable road users. Agencies are increasingly working to move beyond vehicle-based metrics and better account for nonmotorized travel. There is growing interest in understanding not just where people are going, but where they feel unsafe, and where they choose not to travel because of that. This is especially relevant for multimodal safety, pedestrian and bicycle safety, and Safe Routes to School efforts.
Capturing these insights requires expanding how data are collected. Safety is not only about where crashes occur. It is also about the routes people avoid, the modes they do not choose, and the trips they never take. New and enhanced data collection approaches, such as targeted survey questions, qualitative research, and tools that capture travel experiences, can help fill this gap. Together, these methods provide a more complete picture of safety and support decisions that better reflect how people travel.
Better safety analytics require stronger exposure and travel data
A safer future depends on better data. In multiple conference sessions, speakers highlighted questions around route choice, exposure, and mode shifts in response to safety concerns. These areas are often unrepresented in data sources used for safety analytics, and this is where survey research, including household travel surveys, can provide valuable insight.
For example, an agency already conducting a household travel survey could ask whether a safety concern prompted a change in route or mode, followed by more detailed questions to understand the nature of that change. These types of questions are not always included in standard household travel surveys, but in most instances, they would be easy to add. The takeaway for agencies already fielding a household travel survey is that even a small number of targeted questions can significantly expand the value of these datasets for safety purposes.
This matters because many data sources currently used for safety analytics are limited to motorized travel. Measures like vehicle miles traveled provide limited insight into multimodal exposure. Agencies have advanced their analytics capabilities with new and innovative data sources, but often they do not capture pedestrian and bicycle travel or how safety concerns influence those trips. Tools such as rMove® provide pedestrian trace data and bike trace data that can further enhance agencies’ safety analytics. When combined with other data sources, these data provide a more complete picture of how people travel and where safety concerns are shaping those decisions.
For agencies advancing Vision Zero plans and SS4A-funded efforts, or other safety initiatives, this creates a clear opportunity. Incorporating household travel surveys, targeted survey add-ons, and tools such as rMove into safety workflows can strengthen exposure metrics, improve multimodal analysis, and better align investments with how people actually experience the transportation system.
What comes next
Our team’s biggest takeaway from Safe Mobility 2026 is that transportation safety continues to evolve as agencies build on a strong foundation of existing work. Speed remains central, and agencies are grappling with how to institutionalize safety, how to continue to build safer systems for vulnerable road users, and how to understand the role of perceived safety in shaping real travel behavior.
Looking ahead, transportation safety efforts will increasingly incorporate a more complete picture of how people travel, considering exposure, comfort, and where people are choosing different routes, modes, or not traveling at all. These insights can help ensure that safety strategies reflect what communities actually need.
This is where better data can make a meaningful difference. By bringing together data on speed, exposure, travel patterns, and lived experience, agencies can continue to strengthen their safety programs and align investments with community needs. That momentum was evident throughout the conference and points to how the field will continue to evolve in the years ahead.
····························
If your agency is exploring how to strengthen transportation safety with better quantitative or qualitative data, RSG can help. From household travel surveys and targeted survey add-ons to tools like rMove, we help organizations build a fuller picture of speed, exposure, multimodal travel, and lived experience so safety decisions better reflect how people actually use the transportation system.
