The University of Liverpool and Geographic Data Service are excited to announce the launch of a new Pedestrian Infrastructure and Safety Toolkit. The toolkit is the product of a collaboration between academics from the Geographic Data Service (GeoDS) at the University of Liverpool, and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA). This research is part of an ongoing project supported by the University of Liverpool’s Partnership & Innovation Fund, which aims to transform how strategic transport decisions are made by policymakers through the power of geographic data, and the strengthening of deeper partnerships.
Project lead, Dr. Patrick Ballantyne, recently delivered a talk about this project at CARTO’s Spatial Data Science Conference 2025, which you can watch below:
Policy Need
LCRCA has set ambitious goals for road safety, committing to “Vision Zero” by 2040 to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while promoting safe, healthy, and equitable mobility. Despite seeing falling fatalities and accidents in Liverpool City Region in recent years, pedestrians continue to be disproportionately affected by road accidents, particularly in urban areas with high foot traffic and complex transport networks. This project addresses a critical evidence gap to support safer urban mobility for all.
Approach
Building a Toolkit for Pedestrian Infrastructure and Safety
Our approach focuses on developing a user-friendly, data-informed toolkit that guides local authorities and planners in enhancing pedestrian safety. We have chosen to create a narrative dashboard that integrates infrastructure data, collision statistics, and demographic information to highlight the status of pedestrian infrastructure and safety and identify key areas for intervention. By combining GIS, mapping and multi-criteria decision models, the toolkit provides a solid foundation for evidence-based decision-making.
Co-Production with Stakeholders: Design Consultation & Prototyping
A central component of this project has been collaboration with key stakeholders, including local government representatives and transport planners. Through a series of participatory workshops, we gathered a diverse range of perspectives to identify key pedestrian safety challenges and co-design the toolkit to provide the necessary functions. Prototyping sessions allowed for feedback, ensuring that the toolkit reflected both data-driven insights and real policy needs.
Fig. Output of stakeholder consultation exercises and workshopping, to design a conceptual framework for new pedestrian crossings in Liverpool City Region.
Use Cases
The toolkit provides an overview of current pedestrian infrastructure in Liverpool City Region, as well as a composite indicator which pinpoints locations for intervention based on a variety of measures including collision statistics and demographic indicators. You can watch this short video to see the toolkit in operation.
This indicator will allow local policymakers to easily identify weak spots—areas where pedestrian crossings are lacking, where vulnerable populations are present, and where services that attract pedestrian traffic (such as bus stops, schools, and parks) are located. Additionally, it highlights areas with higher reports of accidents, enabling infrastructure investment to be directed into neighbourhoods where there is high incidence of serious or fatal traffic accidents.
The toolkit was recently demonstrated to transport leaders from across Liverpool City Region at the recent Transport Advisory Group (TAG) meeting in LCRCA, where feedback was overwhelmingly positive, highlighting the impact this toolkit will have on long-term transport planning in the region.
Fig. Pedestrian Infrastructure & Safety Toolkit, available to explore at tinyurl.com/lcrca-ped.
Future Directions
We are thrilled to further develop this project in partnership with stakeholders from LCRCA, and showcase the toolkit to the transport planning community to gather feedback and share best practices.
In June, we will be hosting a “towards data-driven transport planning in Liverpool City Region” seminar. This will bring together academic experts from the University of Liverpool and various stakeholders from LCRCA to explore how further collaborations can be solidified between the two institutions.
The event will be an excellent opportunity to showcase our new Pedestrian Infrastructure & Safety toolkit, as well as the broad suite of interesting collaborative work that has been completed between GeoDS and LCRCA around the use of data for improved transport decision making.
