01589916

Component

The AASHTO Highway Safety Manual (HSM) offers the potential for incorporation of high quality quantitative safety analyses into transportation project development and decision-making. Applying the HSM methods requires collecting and maintaining detailed and comprehensive data systems and implementing complex analysis methodologies for quantifying safety performance. The use and implementation of the HSM can be challenging given the complex processes and limited practical guidance on a variety of components. This paper discusses the obstacles that agencies are currently encountering while integrating HSM-based analyses into standard practice and the strategies being used to overcome them. The discussion includes case studies of approaches for dealing with missing data, unclear analysis methodologies, and analyzing conditions that don’t fit exactly within the HSM’s parameters. Reviewing the experience gained by a variety of users provides insight into potential issues and enables the development of guidance and best practices for use by other agencies to aid in bridging information and knowledge gaps during HSM implementation. The ability to quantify safety effects of design facilitates betters project decision making, improves the understanding of tradeoffs, and encourages the most efficient use of resources. The paper provides guidance on overcoming implementation challenges so jurisdictions can, at a minimum, implement pieces of the HSM methods as opposed to not at all. This will help to progress the use of quantitative safety analyses in the planning and design processes, guide the development of future editions of the HSM, and encourage continued use of quantitative-based safety in transportation decision-making.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB25 Standing Committee on Highway Safety Performance.

01584066

16-2094

English

16p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Web

Figures; References (16) ; Tables

Best practices; Case studies; Decision making; Project management; Safety audits; Safety management

Highway Safety Manual

Highways; Policy; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-2094

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 4:55PM