MPO and SHSO Coordination on Behavioral Traffic Safety

State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) administer grant funding provided by NHTSA to fund effective behavioral safety countermeasures to reduce collisions. With the introduction of federal requirements for Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to develop safety performance measures and targets, these organizations are increasingly committed to identifying programs, policies, and projects to help meet regional, and ultimately, statewide safety goals. All states have one or more MPOs that are responsible for planning and programming funds in urbanized areas with at least 50,000 people. Behavioral traffic safety could be greatly enhanced by increased engagement between SHSOs and MPOs. The latter have a strong understanding of the regional transportation network, the capability to obtain and analyze local crash data, potentially the means and skills to develop transportation safety plans, and connections to local decision makers who can fund and implement investments. Since a large proportion of traffic crashes are caused by human error, progress toward reducing the frequency and severity of traffic crashes can be better accomplished if SHSOs and MPOs initiate steps to work together on regional and local safety needs. Such collaboration could result in better use of local and regional resources and more effectively address behavioral traffic safety issues. Note: For the purposes of this research, behavioral traffic safety is defined as the study of actions and attitudes of all road users. The objective of this research is to develop guidance for MPOs and SHSOs to improve coordination on local and regional behavioral safety efforts to reduce the frequency and severity of traffic crashes. The guidance should describe the mutual benefits of enhanced coordination on local and regional traffic safety behavioral issues, introduce best practices, and develop scalable processes and tools to develop a framework for engaging MPOs to work in collaboration with SHSOs. The guidance should address a broad range of topics related to the objective, such as, but not limited to, the following: (1) Describing current SHSO and MPO practices for implementing behavioral traffic safety approaches; (2) Identifying challenges for collaboration to meet the project objective; (3) Developing case studies that include examples of collaboration and innovation, both national and international; (4) Identifying and developing strategies for effective collaboration; (5) Identifying and describing the benefits of collaboration between MPOs and SHSOs; (6) Developing effectiveness methods and metrics; and (7) Developing a toolkit of innovative strategies to facilitate communication between MPOs of various sizes and SHSOs.

Record URL:

Language

English

Project

Status: Active
Funding: $350000
Contract Numbers:
Project BTS-06
Sponsor Organizations:
Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program

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

Governors Highway Safety Association

444 N. Capitol Street, NW, Suite 722
Washington, DC United States 20001

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C. United States 20590
Project Managers:
Retting, Richard
Performing Organizations:
Cambridge Systematics, Incorporated

150 Cambridge Park Drive, Suite 4000
Cambridge, MA United States 02140-2369
Principal Investigators:
Denbow, Rich
Start Date: 20190617
Expected Completion Date: 20220422
Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

TRT Terms: Behavior; Best practices; Coordination; Countermeasures; Drivers; Guidelines; Highway safety organizations; Metropolitan planning organizations; Traffic crashes; Traffic safety
Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

Accession Number: 01674393
Record Type: Research project
Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
Contract Numbers: Project BTS-06
Files: TRB, RIP
Created Date: Jul 2 2018 9:03PM