Street Smarts: A Professor Whose Research Is Leading Us Down Safer Roads

For Wisnu Sugiarto, efficient travel is about more than getting from here to there. It also means finding ways to avoid or prevent the dangers on our highways, byways and neighborhood roads that cost money and lives, an area where economics—with its focus on human behavior, decision-making and resources—can provide valuable insights.

“Transportation affects everyone—not just drivers, but also pedestrians. It’s a public health issue,” says Sugiarto, who is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Whitman College. In his research, Sugiarto uses applied micro­economics approaches to examine how individuals and public agencies allocate resources—be it on tires, wildlife crossings or traffic officers. 

The stakes are high. Each deer struck on a highway, for instance, can cause $9,000 in vehicle damage and cleanup costs, Sugiarto says. The potential cost in life is even more concerning. 

“On average in 2022, there were 116 [traffic-related] fatalities per day and over 6,500 injuries per day in the United States,” he says. “That means there’s one death every 12 minutes, and five people are injured every minute.”

Sugiarto hopes his research can provide insights that make the roads safer for everyone, from identifying localized traffic accident patterns to understanding the role of wildlife crossings in preventing crashes to the environmental impacts of chemicals used to manufacture tires.

Understanding Hotspots

Where do vehicle collisions happen and why? In his research, Sugiarto relies heavily on publicly available data—such as GPS-tagged police reports and OpenStreetMap road data. With this information, he and his colleagues can zoom in to the street level to analyze where and why accidents occur, painting a clearer picture of location-specific factors—like tree coverage or sidewalk conditions—that may affect road safety. Those insights could help urban planners and policymakers target their resources more effectively.

Existing research has also shown that traffic stops, for instance, can help reduce the number of accidents, injuries and fatalities. But rather than applying a blanket approach to traffic law enforcement, Sugiarto wants to use street-block-level data to create more localized traffic safety strategies. 

“A driver might be on a perfectly engineered road, but if there are distractions like pedestrians or poor signage or someone not obeying traffic lights, then safety is compromised,” Sugiarto says.

“We want to help cities to develop and implement evidence-based strategies for improving traffic safety at the neighborhood level.”

Crossing Paths With Nature

Washington state’s nearly two dozen wildlife-crossing structures—overpasses and underpasses—are designed to help animals, such as deer, elk and moose, move safely across highways. But they do more than protect these sizable creatures.

Sugiarto’s research shows that each bridge saves between $235,000 and $443,000 in accident costs yearly—and wildlife crossing structures result in one to three fewer wildlife-vehicle collisions per mile per year. Sugiarto’s findings were published in the journal Transportation Research Record. 

Fewer accidents mean lower car repair costs, fewer injuries and less road cleanup, he says. But not all structures are equally effective.

The collision reductions were more consistent among roadways with wildlife bridges versus those with culverts (tunnel-like structures that allow water to flow under roads), Sugiarto says. 

His findings drew local and national attention from organizations like the Pew Charitable Trusts and offer transportation planners actionable information to use in future designs.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Sugiarto’s research also focuses on another lesser-known—but serious—issue: the chemical 6PPD, an antiozonant used to prevent rubber degradation in vehicle tires. When 6PPD reacts with airborne ozone, it produces a byproduct with resulting runoff that is toxic to aquatic life, including salmon, which can die minutes after exposure. 

Sugiarto’s study surveyed car owners to assess their willingness to pay for tires made without this chemical, providing essential data that could inform both policy and product design. 

“It’s a great example of microeconomics at work—connecting individual choices to broader environmental outcomes,” he says.

Using an online survey of nearly 700 drivers in Washington, Oregon and California, Sugiarto found that the median respondent was willing to pay 10% more—$76—for four reformulated “salmon safe” tires. A quarter of respondents said they would be willing to pay $225 or more. 

In the age of big data and complex policy issues, Sugiarto believes his more granular economic insights can help guide policy conversations in directions that make our neighborhoods, travels and world safer—saving lives and money.