Data Management — Reports

Perspectives for the Development of the Roadway Safety Data Program

INTRODUCTION

Over the past several decades, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) have focused on using data to improve decisions related to transportation investments. Whether maintenance, safety or operations focused, the FHWA has leveraged limited resources and targeted important projects to address needs that often times outstrip available funding. This focused approach has also carried over to the State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) to improve safety and mobility across the country.

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) has provided a foundation for better roadway safety data. States are required to have a safety data system to perform problem identification and countermeasure analysis on all public roads, adopt strategic and performance-based goals, advance data collection, analysis, and integration capabilities, determine priorities for the correction of identified safety problems, and establish evaluation procedures. In addition, the Secretary will establish a subset of the model inventory of roadway elements (listing of roadway and traffic data elements critical to safety management, analysis, and decision-making), to be adopted and used by States to support these requirements.

Highway safety analysis is evolving, and the importance of quality data has never been more apparent. Quality safety data are the foundation for highway safety decisions. Much of the effort in the safety community at the turn of the century concentrated on crash data; however, crash data are only part of the picture. Roadway and traffic data are also essential. By incorporating roadway and traffic data into their network screening, prioritization, and countermeasure selection analysis, agencies can better identify safety problems and prescribe solutions to improve safety and make more efficient and effective use of their safety funds.

Crash data alone are useful, but leave safety practitioners with purely reactive approaches— identifying the locations where crashes have already happened. With the addition of traffic volume and roadway data, it is possible to develop estimates of the expected crash frequency and compare crash risks for roadways with vastly different levels of service. As safety practitioners add detailed roadway inventory information to the mix, they can now develop a more in-depth understanding of the roadway attributes that contribute to crash risk thus allowing them to adopt a proactive approach seeking out those factors associated with a high risk of crashes and addressing sites that share those features. In anticipation of the MAP-21 requirements, FHWA developed the Roadway Safety Data Program (RSDP) as a collaborative effort between FHWA and States to ensure that they are best able to develop robust data-driven safety capabilities. RSDP includes a variety of projects all aimed at improving the collection, analysis, management, and expansion of roadway data for use in safety programs and decision-making. The Office of Safety surveyed all fifty States, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia to assess each State's roadway safety data capabilities. In addition to the recommendations and national gaps found in this baseline assessment, the FHWA held a series of four peer exchanges to garner additional State input. This document follows the assessment process. It summarizes perspectives of the project team and the State participants in the capabilities assessment and Peer Exchanges on FHWA's Roadway Safety Data Program. It offers input on roles FHWA could play in improving safety data systems and safety analysis capabilities. The document organizes these perspectives into the following four areas:

• Goal I Data Collection: This goal covers four elements: completeness, timeliness, accuracy, and uniformity / consistency. When addressing roadway inventory data collection, the assessment followed the primary categories from the Model Inventory of Roadway Elements (MIRE) Version 1.0.
• Goal II Data Analysis: This goal covers five elements in the safety planning process, including network screening, diagnosis, countermeasure selection, evaluation and accessibility.
• Goal III Data Management: This goal for the effective management of roadway safety data covers three elements: policies, procedures, and personnel.
• Goal IV Data Expansion: This goal covers how roadway safety data relates to other data including, but not limited to, crash data and roadway inventory data. Additionally, existing data may expand as needs change and new technologies and tools develop.

This document discusses each proposed action in the report to offer additional perspectives to FHWA on the findings of the assessments, the peer exchanges, and the team's experience. The document provides consistency using the following categories to discuss each proposed action:

• Detailed Description and Motivation – The project team recognizes that context is extremely important and while an action can provide some limited context, additional detailed information regarding the motivation for the action by the States is helpful in determining priority.
• Priority – The project team used several methods to determine priority from the States' perspective and outlines the support generated by discussing:
  • Whether it was a key finding from the assessments.
  • Whether it was supported as a top three action in the peer exchanges.
  • Whether the team supported the action as a top three action independent of the assessments or peer exchanges.

  The project team summarized the priority into four categories:

  • Critical – These actions are critical to meeting FHWA and State safety data capability improvement objectives.
  • High – These actions are not critical; but, desired by the States, the FHWA, and the project team.
  • Medium – These actions are not critical, but, desired by the States and the project team.
  • Low – These actions are not critical; but desired by the States or the project team.
• Potential Delivery Methods – There are several methods that the FHWA commonly uses to provide technical assistance. The project team identified the recommended method in bold and provides the following partial list of proven methods to deliver technical assistance:

  Talking points. Management briefings. Videos or CD-ROMs. Clearinghouses. Training / presentations / webinar sessions. Panel discussion. Domestic / international scans. Peer exchanges.

  Community of practice. Symposium, conference, or summit. Site visits. Program reviews. Literature review. Best practices. Case studies. Guidebook.

• Team Recommendation – The project team summarized its recommended delivery method for each action and identified if another similar action could be offeredconcurrently.