01371372

Component

An important potential benefit of a jurisdiction developing an upper-level traffic safety policy statement, such as a strategic highway safety plan (SHSP) or a traffic safety action plan, is the creation of a manageable number of focus areas, known as emphasis areas. The responsible agencies in the jurisdiction can then direct their finite resources in a systematic and strategic way that is designed to maximize the effort to reduce the number and severity of roadway collisions. This study reviewed the SHSPs of 53 jurisdictions in North America, and conducted descriptive data analyses to clarify the selection process of jurisdiction-specific emphasis areas. The authors found that the current process relies heavily on high-level collision data analysis and communication amongst the SHSP stakeholders, but may not be the most effective way of selecting the emphasis areas. This study then formulated a formal collision diagnosis tool (the beta-binomial test) to clarify and illuminate the selection of jurisdiction-specific emphasis areas. The authors developed numerical examples to demonstrate how engineers can apply the proposed diagnosis test to improve the selection and prioritization of individual jurisdictions' emphasis areas.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB10 Transportation Safety Management

01362476

12-0880

English

20p

2012

Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Crash analysis; Crash data; Crashes; Highway safety; Strategic planning

Strategic Highway Safety Plan

North America

Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2012 Paper #12-0880

TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2012 4:58PM