Research for AASHTO Standing Committee on Highways. Task 367. Analysis of Crash Contributing Factors to Determine Appropriate Countermeasures

To determine how best to address a known or potential safety concern, it is necessary to properly assess the factors contributing to the crashes in order to be able to then determine appropriate countermeasures that can reduce the potential risk. As the field of quantitative safety analysis has developed, many of the procedures using the results of the quantitative analyses have also evolved. The next phase in the growth of this field should support the tasks of analyzing crash data to completely understand or diagnose a particular situation and aid in selecting countermeasures. Development of a document that provides best practices and recommendations on procedures for practitioners to use will further promote use of data-driven, quantitative approaches to consideration of safety in project decisions. With ever-increasing recognition of the need to more fully assess countermeasures from an engineering, enforcement, emergency medical service, and education perspective, the research proposes guidance for evaluating, analyzing, and diagnosing crash data and potential countermeasures. The research will develop a tool for practitioners to assess the nature of reported crashes, overrepresentation of the contributing circumstances, manner of collision and other factors necessary to determine appropriate countermeasures using more recently developed analysis and decision methods. This includes, but is not limited to, enhancements to the use of collision diagramming and analysis, analytical visualization, gathering supporting documentation and making field based assessments as a means to supplement decision-making within safety programs and projects. The research will should assess how National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 600 (2012), Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems, and other supporting documents related to diagnosing safety concerns are relevant and can be used to assist the practitioner in countermeasure identification and selection. This research will be summarized and provided to the greater highway safety community, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Highway Safety Performance Committee and other related TRB Committees, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Standing Committee on Highway Traffic Safety and AASHTO Highway Safety Manual Task Force for consideration and dissemination to practitioners for use with safety assessments. This research also provides a valuable supplement to work completed under NCHRP 501: Integrated Safety Management Process, the AASHTO Highway Safety Manual, AASHTO SafetyAnalyst and road safety audits. This effort is directly linked to the AASHTO SCOHTS Strategic Plan Part 6: Management: Improving Information and Decision Support Systems, and the Towards Zero Deaths: a National Strategy on Highway Safety. The objective of this research is to assess the state of the practice, make recommendations on methods and procedures to complete diagnostic assessments of crashes at the project and program level, and to show appropriate cases studies to complete this activity.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=3813
• Supplemental Notes:
  • AASHTO Standing Committee on Highway Traffic Safety. Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Proposed
• Funding: $100000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 20-07, Task

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW, Suite 225
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Project Managers:

  Derr, B

• Start Date: 20141119
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• Source Data: RiP Project 37597

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Best practices; Countermeasures; Crash analysis; Crash data; Crashes; Decision making; Highway safety
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01543723
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 20-07, Task
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 20 2014 1:05AM