Vision Zero analytics for proactive road safety decisions

Move from reactive crash history to proactive safety insight

Vision Zero and Safe System work often starts with a difficult question: where should a traffic-safety team investigate first, especially before a severe crash history is visible in the data?

Crash records are important, but they can be delayed, sparse or incomplete for emerging risks. Proactive road safety analytics adds another evidence layer by observing how road users move through real locations. That can help teams identify patterns worth reviewing, prioritize further analysis and follow up after changes have been made.

Viscando supports this work with traffic data about movements, behaviours, interactions and accident-risk indicators. The result is decision support for road-safety teams, not a guaranteed safety outcome.

Understand how people and vehicles move through risk locations

Vision Zero analytics becomes useful when it connects policy goals to specific traffic environments. A city may need to understand how pedestrians cross near a school route, how cyclists and vehicles interact at an intersection, or how movement patterns change after a redesign.

Viscando OTUS3D is designed for complex traffic environments where several road-user classes use the same space. It can measure pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles simultaneously, including movement direction and speed where project setup supports it.

This makes the data relevant for locations such as:

• Intersections with several turning movements.
• Crossings used by vulnerable road users.
• Cycling corridors and school routes.
• Streets where pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles share limited space.
• Before-and-after study locations where a design, signal or traffic-calming change needs follow-up.

Read more about Viscando’s wider traffic work on the Traffic page.

What is Vision Zero analytics?

Vision Zero analytics is the use of traffic movement, behaviour and interaction data to support proactive road-safety decisions. Instead of relying only on historical crash statistics, a team can review how road users actually move through a location and where patterns may need deeper investigation.

For Viscando customers, this connects three practical layers:

1. OTUS3D captures multimodal road-user data in public traffic environments.
2. Traffic analysis turns counts, speeds, directions, movements and interactions into evidence.
3. VisualDB helps teams review, export and communicate the results.

The purpose is to make road-safety discussions more evidence-led, transparent and easier to follow up over time.

How traffic safety analytics differs from traffic counting

Traffic counting explains how many road users pass a point. Traffic safety analytics adds more context: who is moving, where they move, when they move, how different road-user classes interact and what patterns may be relevant for a safety review.

Counting is still useful. It can show demand, modal mix and traffic volume. But Vision Zero teams often need additional questions answered:

• Are pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles using the same space at the same time?
• Which movements or directions create the most complex interactions?
• Do patterns change by time of day, season or after a design change?
• What evidence can be shared with consultants, decision makers and stakeholders?
• Which locations deserve more detailed engineering review?

Viscando’s value is the connection between objective traffic sensing, behaviour and interaction data, and practical reporting in VisualDB.

Turn road-safety data into decisions stakeholders can review

Road-safety work rarely depends on one person. Municipal teams, road authorities, engineers, consultants, elected officials and local stakeholders may all need to understand why a location is being studied or why a countermeasure is being considered.

VisualDB helps make traffic evidence easier to review and share. Viscando’s source material describes VisualDB as a way to follow trends, review exact movements, speed, direction and time, export data and create stakeholder-ready reports.

For a Vision Zero analytics project, this can support a clear workflow:

• Collect objective road-user movement data.
• Review trends and interaction patterns.
• Compare before-and-after periods where relevant.
• Export evidence for further analysis.
• Share dashboards or reports with stakeholders.
• Use findings to support prioritization and follow-up discussions.

Learn more about the reporting layer on Data visualization.

What data can support a Vision Zero program?

The right data depends on the location, project question and measurement setup. For a proactive road-safety study, useful evidence may include:

• Road-user classes, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motor vehicles.
• Movement paths through an intersection, corridor or crossing.
• Speed, direction, time and flow patterns.
• Turning movements and multimodal interactions.
• Behaviour and interaction indicators that support further safety review.
• Before-and-after comparisons after design, signal, street-space or traffic-calming changes.
• Visual dashboards, exports and stakeholder reports.

This information can help a team move from “we think this location may be a concern” to a more structured discussion about what is happening, what should be investigated and how future changes can be evaluated.

Built for municipalities, road authorities and consultants

Vision Zero analytics is most valuable when it fits the way public-sector traffic teams actually work. The audience is not only looking for a sensor. They need evidence that can support planning, prioritization, documentation and communication.

Viscando’s 3D and AI-sensing can support:

Privacy-aware sensing in public traffic environments

Traffic analytics in public spaces must balance useful evidence with responsible data handling. Viscando’s source material states that images are not sent or stored, but transformed into numbers and graphs.

That approach supports privacy-aware traffic sensing, especially for municipalities and road authorities evaluating public environments. It also helps keep the page focused on the relevant output: traffic data, movement patterns and stakeholder-ready evidence.

Read more about Viscando’s sensing technology on 3D and AI-sensing.

When to use Vision Zero analytics

Vision Zero analytics is a strong fit when the planning question depends on how people and vehicles actually use a location.

Consider a Viscando traffic safety analytics project when you need to:

• Investigate a complex intersection or crossing.
• Understand vulnerable-road-user movements.
• Compare traffic behaviour before and after a change.
• Support a Vision Zero, Safe System or proactive road-safety program.
• Communicate evidence to stakeholders using dashboards and reports.
• Review traffic safety questions before relying only on severe crash history.

If the need is only a simple volume count, a narrower counting project may be enough. If the need involves interactions, behaviours, before-and-after evaluation or stakeholder communication, a broader analytics setup can provide more useful decision support.

Talk to Viscando about your Vision Zero analytics project

Every Vision Zero project starts with a specific location, concern or decision. Viscando can help you discuss what should be measured, which road users matter, how long the study should run and how the results should be reviewed.

Talk to Viscando about your Vision Zero or traffic safety analytics project.

Contact Viscando