Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27242989›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in public health2016

Webcams, Crowdsourcing, and Enhanced Crosswalks: Developing a Novel Method to Analyze Active Transportation.

J Aaron Hipp, Alicia Manteiga, Amanda Burgess, Abby Stylianou, Robert Pless

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in public health, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Observational
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

J Aaron HippDepartment of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University , Raleigh, NC , USA.
Alicia ManteigaPrevention Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis , St. Louis, MO , USA.
Amanda BurgessPrevention Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis , St. Louis, MO , USA.
Abby StylianouDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis , St. Louis, MO , USA.
Robert PlessDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis , St. Louis, MO , USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionActive transportation opportunities and infrastructure are an important component of a community's design, livability, and health. Features of the built environment influence active transportation, but objective study of the natural experiment effects of built environment improvements on active transportation is challenging. The purpose of this study was to develop and present a novel method of active transportation research using webcams and crowdsourcing, and to determine if crosswalk enhancement was associated with changes in active transportation rates, including across a variety of weather conditions.

methodsThe 20,529 publicly available webcam images from two street intersections in Washington, DC, USA were used to examine the impact of an improved crosswalk on active transportation. A crowdsource, Amazon Mechanical Turk, annotated image data. Temperature data were collected from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and precipitation data were annotated from images by trained research assistants.

resultsSummary analyses demonstrated slight, bi-directional differences in the percent of images with pedestrians and bicyclists captured before and after the enhancement of the crosswalks. Chi-square analyses revealed these changes were not significant. In general, pedestrian presence increased in images captured during moderate temperatures compared to images captured during hot or cold temperatures. Chi-square analyses indicated the crosswalk improvement may have encouraged walking and biking in uncomfortable outdoor conditions (P < 0.5).

conclusionThe methods employed provide an objective, cost-effective alternative to traditional means of examining the effects of built environment changes on active transportation. The use of webcams to collect active transportation data has applications for community policymakers, planners, and health professionals. Future research will work to validate this method in a variety of settings as well as across different built environment and community policy initiatives.

Indexed as

active transportationbicyclist detectionbuilt environmentcrosswalkscrowdsourcingpedestrian detectionwebcams

Identifiers

PMID27242989
PMCPMC4871890

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.