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Ce412 - Chapter 06 - Transportation Safety & Economics
Ce412 - Chapter 06 - Transportation Safety & Economics
1. Crashes or Accidents
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Accident is the commonly accepted word for an occurrence involving one or more transportation
vehicles in a collision that results in property damages, injury, or death. The term accident implies a
random event that occurs for no apparent reason other than “it just happened.”
The National Highway Tra c Safety Administration has
suggested replacing the word accident with the word
crash because crash implies that the collision could
have been prevented or its e ect minimized by
modifying driver behavior, vehicle design (called
“crashworthiness”), roadway geometry, or the traveling
environment. The word crash is not universally accepted
terminology for all transportation modes and is most
common in the context of highway and tra c incidents.
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While the causes of highway crashes are usually complex and involve several factors, they can be
considered in four separate categories: human factors (actions by the driver or operator), factors related to
the mechanical condition of the vehicle, factors related to the geometric characteristics of the roadway,
and environmental factors (the physical or climatic environment in which the vehicle operates).
• HUMAN FACTOR • MECHANICAL CONDITION OF VEHICLE • GEOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROADWAY • ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR
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Driving at an inappropriate speed for the Driver inattentiveness Failure to yield the right-of-way
existing physical and/or environmental
condition.
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L M PT
PC
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A B
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R R
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• Identify and seek funding for improvements to transportation infrastructure to increase safety.
• Facilitate coordinated emergency responses through incident management planning.
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• Incorporate future recommendations from the Regional Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) into
the Regional Transportation Plan.
• Promote and coordinate programs that educate people about and market safety.
• Address safety needs of environmental justice population segments, including elderly or disabled
people.
• Promote the use of and assist members with auditing services (e.g., road safety, walkable,
bikeable) for reducing crashes using low-cost improvements.
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• Support appropriate education and enforcement activities to improve safety. This includes
building knowledge for necessary legislative initiatives, supporting relevant professional
development for law enforcement sta , and educating members of the judicial branch of the
consequences of frequently reducing charges.
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One of the major changes in transportation safety Safety Goals and Objectives Hierarchy,
Minnesota DOT
Area TIP planning (and for that matter, all federally-
supported planning) occurred in 2012 with MAP-21
when safety performance measures were required as
part of the transportation planning and decision-
making process, similar to what was shown in Figure.
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National Highway Tra c Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Governors’ Highway Safety
Association (GHSA) developed their own required list of performance measures (that must be
reported on by the state) that include 10 core outcome measures, one core behavior measure, and
three activity measures.
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• Core Outcome Measures - States will set goals and report progress on:
• Number of tra c fatalities (from Fatal Accident Reporting System—FARS): States are
encouraged to report three-year or ve-year moving averages as appropriate (when annual
counts are su ciently small that random uctuations may obscure trends). This comment
applies to all fatality measures.
• Fatalities/Vehicle Miles of Travel (VMT) (FARS, FHWA): States should set a goal for total fatalities/
VMT; states should report both rural and urban fatalities/VMT as well as total fatalities/VMT.
• Number of unrestrained passenger vehicle occupant fatalities, all seat positions (FARS).
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• Core Outcome Measures - States will set goals and report progress on:
• Number of fatalities in crashes involving a driver or motorcycle operator with a blood alcohol
concentration (BAC) of 0.08 and above (FARS).
• Core Behavior measures - States will set goals and report progress on:
• Observed seat belt use for passenger vehicles, front seat outboard occupants (survey).
• Number of impaired driving arrests made during grant-funded enforcement activities (grant
activity reporting).
• Number of speeding citations issued during grant-funded enforcement activities (grant activity
reporting).
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• Miles of sidewalk and percent of plan completed: 3–7 percent of plan implemented per year.
[RTC, 2014c]
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The safety problem in a particular jurisdiction can be de ned in many di erent ways and, in reality, it
is often a combination of many factors. Examining crash data serves as a point of departure for
understanding and articulating safety issues. This is usually an iterative process that begins by
looking at the overall number of crashes with special attention to severity—for example, fatalities
and disabling injuries. The next step is often to establish crash rates or the number of crashes using
an exposure measure such as VMT, number of vehicles entering an intersection, and the like. This
step leads to the identi cation of high-crash locations, road segments, and/or corridors (often
referred to as “hot spot” analysis).
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Safety planning is a data-driven process; however, data quality and availability are often serious
challenges to the planning process for the following reasons.
• Field Coding - Filling out police accident reports is often not a priority at crash scenes; o cers
are focused on treating the injured and returning tra c ow to normal.
• Reference System - Di erent geo-referencing systems are often used for locating crashes, even
among jurisdictions in the same state.
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Safety planning is a data-driven process; however, data quality and availability are often serious
challenges to the planning process for the following reasons.
• Inconsistencies - State databases contain di erent variables and are presented in di erent
formats.
• Timeliness - Data are often two to three years old, if not more.
• Accessibility - Some states and regions do not share data with other agencies for fear of liability.
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The minimum data elements for safety planning should include crash location, contributing factors,
driver characteristics and histories, the manner of collision, crash severity, type of vehicle, exposure
data (vehicle miles of travel), and use of safety devices. These data elements are usually found in the
following multiple locations:
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• Crowd Sourcing. Modern communication technologies allow planners to reach a large number of
individuals through smart phone apps. Crowd sourcing is a process of asking as many individuals
as are part of the network where safety problems exist. The input is not statistically signi cant
given the bias in terms of the narrow sample of the population who responds, but it does provide
some sense of where safety planners might want to look.
• Driver History. Driver histories are recorded for all licensed drivers and unlicensed drivers
involved in a crash. The les contain information on the demographics and license status/
restrictions, convictions, and sometimes the driver history of crashes. These data can be used to
scope and target programs on speci c types of driver violations (such as DUI, speeding, red light
running, and the like). These data provide only a recent snapshot because data on convictions
and crashes (if present at all) are often purged after some time period.
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• Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). FARS was established in 1975 to collect fatal crash
data. The system contains high-quality data on all vehicles and occupants involved in fatal
crashes. Queries can be run online and archival les can be obtained. City and county codes for
each county in the United States are recorded in the database.
• Police Crash Reports. The rst step in any safety analysis is examining police-reported crashes.
Crash reports provide a range of data concerning the speci cs of the incident, contributing
conditions, and status of those involved. Many states have adopted uniform report formats for all
crashes reported in the state; others still have police agency–speci c forms. One of the new
technologies that could improve the quality and timing of these data is the use of computers,
global positioning systems, and uplink capabilities in the police car at the crash site.
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• Population Census Files. The U.S. Census Bureau maintains les on gender, age, and ethnicity
within political subdivisions. The data can also be used as denominator or exposure data,
particularly for identifying road-user problems, for example, young drivers as a percent of the
population in comparison to percent of fatal and injury crashes.
• Roadway Speeds and Operating Performance. Many states and most major metropolitan areas
have tra c operations centers that provide 24-hour surveillance of road operations. Most of these
centers use video or imaging technology that permits the collection of real-time data. These data
can be used to identify tra c conditions when crashes occur, and, when archived, the data can
provide historical information on changing road performance on the network.
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• Roadway Inventory, State Highway System. In most states, the state DOT maintains a roadway
inventory database that contains data on road segments (for example, number of lanes and
shoulder width and type). A limited number of states have curve and grade information or an
intersection/interchange inventory. Many states use video logging for collecting such data, which
could also be used to conduct a safety audit along state routes. A federally required Highway
Performance Monitoring System (HPMS), which collects more complete inventory data on sample
sections on the state’s road network, could be used to get a good understanding of the safety
performance of di erent types of roads, especially if the sample size is expanded to include more
sample segments.
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• Truck Crash Statistics. The Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) is managed
by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) with data fed into it by state agencies
and motor carriers. It is the most comprehensive truck safety database in the United States. The
les contain information on vehicle registration, crashes, roadside inspections, compliance with
federal regulations, and enforcement actions.
• Regional Travel Demand Model Data. MPOs located in air-quality nonattainment areas must
conduct an air-quality conformity analysis to show that investments in their plans do not
deteriorate air quality. This is usually accomplished through modeling e orts, resulting in
systemwide estimates of current and future tra c volumes and ows. Data could be used to
calculate crash rates or for other safety analysis.
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• Roadway Inventory, Local Jurisdictions. Local road inventory databases are generally less
complete than state databases, with the data elements often maintained by di erent departments
(public works, tra c, and maintenance). Local jurisdictions sometimes have supplemental data on
sidewalk and crosswalks, bike paths, and bus stops. The linkage between these data and the
road inventory data, however, is often not well established. Table 23-8, from the Highway Safety
Manual, shows the type of inventory data used to predict the safety bene ts of any particular
countermeasure implemented in a project. As can be seen, there are a lot of factors (and thus a lot
of data) that can be included in a safety analysis. See also Le er [2014] for a more detailed
discussion of the data collection activities of local agencies.
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• Tra c Volumes. Tra c counts are usually available at many locations on the state highway
system, from which average annual daily tra c (AADT) is estimated. The collection of the data for
AADT estimates occurs at permanent (full-time) counters and short counts are done on a two- to
three-year cycle. Truck percentages and volumes are usually included in this database, but they
are generally based on fewer actual counts, so the data are not as extensive. In many states, the
number of permanent count stations is limited by budget considerations. There is a similar
problem with short counts, which may vary from year to year. Many agencies supplement counts
with volume estimates from either their travel-demand models or the roadway inventory
databases previously described. While the quality and accuracy of these estimates vary widely,
they do provide analysts with a more complete set of data on the roadway system.
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Safety projects can be standalone projects that are undertaken speci cally to “ x” a safety problem
(for which there are several federal and state funding programs), or more commonly, safety-oriented
actions can be taken as part of any project to enhance its safety characteristics. Safe movement of
people and vehicles is the most important criterion for facility design, and every design manual used
by transportation engineers begins by talking about safety. A large number of projects are eligible for
federal funding. For example, the following types of projects are eligible for Highway Safety
Improvement Program (HSIP) funding from the U.S. federal government:
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INCORPORATING SAFETY INTO TRANSPORTATION PLANNING
Step 5: Analyze and Evaluate Transportation Safety
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Analysis
The use of analysis tools for assessing the consequences of di erent actions is the core technical
component of the transportation planning process. However, analyzing the relative e ectiveness of
alternative safety strategies is challenging because of the di culties associated with crash data, as
discussed in the preceding section. In addition, many of the strategies that target changing driver
behavior do not have much evidence of their e ectiveness in actually changing behavior. It is
di cult, therefore, to estimate the bene ts of speci c actions.
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There are many examples of how safety can be incorporated into the evaluation and prioritization
process. The two most common approaches include conducting a bene t/cost analysis and
assigning points to each project according to the safety bene ts that are likely to accrue. The
bene t/cost analysis is straightforward and simply evaluates each project by assigning monetary
value to the reduction in crashes expected due to the implementation of countermeasures (the
bene ts) as compared to the expected capital costs of the project.
The second approach entails assigning points, out of a total sum of points available to a project, for
the project’s safety bene ts. For example, each project might earn 100 points corresponding to how
well it achieves the di erent planning goals. Of these 100 points, a maximum of 20 points could be
allocated for safety bene ts. Each project being considered for the TIP could have a maximum of 20
percent of its ranking due to safety bene ts. The following examples illustrate the range in
approaches available for establishing project priorities that include safety.
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Ongoing monitoring of the performance and condition of the transportation system feeds back into
goals, objectives, and performance measures. The feedback loop becomes an important input into
the next cycle of safety planning, as it not only provides a snapshot of performance at that particular
point in time but can also inform decision makers about the experience with previously implemented
actions. Monitoring should include the trends and absolute magnitudes of the transportation system
safety characteristics.
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