Informing the Selection of Countermeasures by Evaluating, Analyzing, and Diagnosing Contributing Factors that Lead to Crashes

Successful safety management practices require a thorough understanding of the factors contributing to motor vehicle crashes. The continuous advancements in the science of data-driven safety analysis, as well as the countermeasures and technologies available for addressing crashes, create challenges in maintaining a safety workforce proficient in the state of the practice. In many cases, agencies continue to use approaches such as descriptive statistics and anecdotal information to perform the diagnostic assessment without a thorough understanding of the expectations for a given context or road type. Additionally, choosing an effective countermeasure requires an examination of the human factors, behavioral factors, future development, prevailing or predicted crash types, and mix of road users to determine the most appropriate treatments to apply. Doing so allows the selected countermeasure to reduce crashes to the greatest extent possible. However, in many cases, practitioners have limited understanding of the potential for a treatment selection to affect other road users. For instance, installing a turn lane might also increase vehicle speeds or pedestrian crossing distance. A better understanding of these relationships and tradeoffs could inform design choices and ultimately result in safer roadways for all road users. Research is needed to develop diagnostic tools that leverage crash, roadway, traffic volume, human factors, behavioral, socioeconomic, and demographic data, as well as non-traditional data sources in order to advance the state of the practice in crash diagnostics and countermeasure selection that considers both modal priorities and facility context. It is common to characterize traffic safety plans as the 4Es of highway safety – engineering, education, enforcement, and emergency medical services. The evaluation, analysis, and diagnosis (the 5th E of safety) of these aspects of crashes in modal and facility contexts should significantly improve the selection and design of countermeasures. The objective of this research was to develop new methods and tools for diagnosing contributing factors leading to crashes that will aid practitioners in selecting appropriate countermeasures in modally diverse contexts. The methods and tools address a wide variety of contributing factors leading to crashes (e.g., roadway, technological, behavioral, human factors, socioeconomic, demographic, weather, and land use) in order to further practitioner understanding of how to most effectively balance tradeoff decisions in a given modal priority and facility context.

Language

  • English

Project

  • Status: Completed
  • Funding: $690000
  • Contract Numbers:

    Project 22-45

  • Sponsor Organizations:

    National Cooperative Highway Research Program

    Transportation Research Board
    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001

    American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

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

    Federal Highway Administration

    1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
    Washington, DC  United States  20590
  • Project Managers:

    Retting, Richard

  • Performing Organizations:

    Exponent

    ,    
  • Principal Investigators:

    Campbell, John

  • Start Date: 20201005
  • Expected Completion Date: 20241004
  • Actual Completion Date: 20240104

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01775923
  • Record Type: Research project
  • Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
  • Contract Numbers: Project 22-45
  • Files: TRB, RIP
  • Created Date: Jul 5 2021 4:27PM