Visualizing Safety: Building, Evaluating, and Enhancing Durham, NC’s Vision Zero Dashboard

<p style="font-weight: 400;">This project details the developments, implementation, and evaluation of the City of Durham&rsquo;s Vision Zero Dashboard as a tool that communicates traffic safety insights and supports the Safe Systems Approach. The dashboard uses spatial datasets, primarily crash data from 2016 to 2025 and the High Injury Network (HIN), to visualize patterns in fatal and serious injury crashes. This study uses mixed methods to combine a review of existing literature on dashboard design and data visualizations with questionnaire responses from City of Durham employees to assess the dashboard&rsquo;s usability, effectiveness, and alignment with the principles of Vision Zero and the Safe Systems approach. <p style="font-weight: 400;">The Vision Zero Dashboard translates complex crash data into accessible, actionable insights that improve users&rsquo; understanding of traffic safety conditions and support systems-based thinking. Questionnaire responses revealed that employees are generally comfortable using the dashboard and find it informative. It also revealed opportunities to improve how the dashboard communicates the core principles of the Safe Systems Approach and long-term strategic goals. The results highlight how an iterative design process, and user feedback gathered throughout the process, guide improvements to the dashboard&rsquo;s functionality and clarity. <p style="font-weight: 400;">This study contributes to existing literature on data dashboards and reinforces that the Vision Zero Dashboard can be a source of education and a decision-support tool. The findings of this study provide clear methods that will ensure the dashboard is maintained and continues to support Durham&rsquo;s Vision Zero goals. Findings can also help cities that are developing their own data dashboard to support transportation safety initiatives. Dashboards cannot eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries on their own, but they can play a critical role in supporting more effective strategies by improving transparency, making crash data accessible, and helping users identify systemic safety issues in need of targeted safety improvements