Advancing Safe System Implementation in Rural and Small Urban Networks: Practical Screening Solutions

Roadway safety remains one of the most persistent transportation challenges across the Mid-Atlantic region, particularly in rural and small urban communities, which consistently experience disproportionately high rates of fatal and serious injury crashes. Federal, state, and local agencies have adopted the Safe System Approach (SSA), which emphasizes proactive, system-level strategies to prevent severe crashes, yet operational implementation gaps remain in rural environments characterized by low traffic volumes, dispersed crash patterns, and resource constraints. Safety screening and project prioritization in these contexts continue to rely heavily on historical crash concentrations, which may fail to capture latent risk in low-volume corridors or rare but severe crash types. This project advances the operationalization of the Safe System Approach through the development and pilot application of a Safe System-aligned Risk Screening Tool for rural and small urban networks, supplementing traditional crash-based screening with structured systemic roadway risk factors and selected technology-enabled surrogate indicators, applied within a selected West Virginia network.

• Record URL:
  • https://smartercenter.org/about-2/projects/advancing-safe-system-implementation-in-rural-and-small-urban-networks-practical-screening-solutions/

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $400,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552348303

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Safety and Mobility Advancements Regional Transportation and Economics Research Center

  Morgan State University
  Baltimore, MD  United States 
• Performing Organizations:

  Safety and Mobility Advancements Regional Transportation and Economics Research Center

  Morgan State University
  Baltimore, MD  United States 
• Principal Investigators:

  Pyrialakou, Dimitra

• Start Date: 20260801
• Expected Completion Date: 20280301
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway safety; Implementation; Risk assessment; Rural areas
• Identifier Terms: Safe System Approach
• Geographic Terms: West Virginia
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01998030
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility Regional Transportation Equity Research Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552348303
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Aug 1 2026 9:41AM