Cowley LTN’s second year of halved road crashes

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Low Traffic Neighbourhood Areas (LTNs) implemented in Cowley, Oxford in 2021 have halved the number of road crashes compared to pre-LTN levels. In addition, crashes on the boundary roads are reduced. This is based on Police road collision statistics released in September 2024.

CoHSAT analysed the data in the 3 Cowley LTNs and their boundary roads for 2022 and 2023 and compared this to the pre-LTN and pre-Covid period of 2015-2019. We found:

  • Collisions causing casualties inside the LTNs fell from 7.4 a year to 3.0 – a reduction of 59%
  • Collisions on boundary roads fell from 25 to 21 – a reduction of 16%
  • The total average reduction is 8.4 collisions and at least 8.4 casualties per year
A bar chart showing Road Collisions per year in the Cowley LTN areas. from 2015 to 2019 the numbers range from 5 to 9. 
2020 and 2021 are greyed due the the pandemic, but were each 4.
In 2022 there were 4.
In 2023 there were 2.
Compared to the baseline, road casualties in the LTNs were 59% (4.4) lower

With results from two years, we can be more confident that the LTNs are having the expected effects of reducing casualties. These results are highly consistent with a study of 72 Low Traffic Neghbourhoods in London, which found casualties reduced by 49% and no significant change on boundary roads. The Government’s March 2024 Low Traffic Neighbourhoods Review also concluded that “there is evidence that there has been less street crime and improved road safety within LTNs.”

“There has been there has been a dramatic reduction in harm from crashes in and around these low traffic neighbourhoods, from which both residents and drivers benefit. Some drivers might like to save a few seconds by using these streets, but this analysis shows that cutting through these residential streets is more dangerous for residents, and for them.” said CoHSAT Co-Chair, Robin Tucker.

Cllr Charlie Hicks, the County Councillor for the area, said: “These routes are used by hundreds of children every day to walk, cycle or wheel to school, so it’s brilliant to see that the LTNs are improving the safety of our streets both inside the LTNs and on the boundary roads. That’s fewer families receiving dreaded calls from the police, fewer people being injured or killed, and less strain on our John Radcliffe A&E department.”

Note: Only collisions causing injury to people are included in the statistics, not ‘damage only’ collisions.

Picture of a car turned upside down in an Oxford Street
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods mean that car crashes happen less often.
(this one was on a boundary road – we don’t know if it was classed as ‘damage only’ or as an ‘injury collision’). Photo credit – Damian Haywood