NCHRP Report 811 provides state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) with a practical, field-tested guidebook on institutionalizing the continuous integration of safety into transportation planning and programming processes. The guidebook provides techniques, tactics, and strategies for agencies to use to institutionalize safety as a decision and planning factor. This guidebook should be useful to state, regional, and local transportation agencies; professional associations; and interest groups in examining how, and how effectively, safety has been integrated into transportation planning processes. More than 30,000 people are killed in crashes every year on the U.S. road system. In addition to the tragic loss of life, traffic fatalities cost the American economy $280 billion annually. In 1991, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) added safety as a required decision factor in the transportation planning process. Fourteen years later, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) required each state department of transportation (DOT) to prepare a Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP), a coordinated plan that provides a roadmap for improving safety on all public roads. Every state DOT has developed an SHSP. Developing an SHSP and expanding the transportation planning process to explicitly include safety are unique and separate actions intended to complement each other. However, realizing the SHSP’s goal of improving transportation safety requires robust implementation of both plans and planning processes. State DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations, and other agencies involved in transportation safety are using a variety of approaches to integrate safety into the overall transportation planning process. Under NCHRP Project 08-76, Cambridge Systematics, Inc., was asked to analyze these different approaches from a national perspective and to develop comprehensive guidance on successful techniques, tactics, and strategies that contribute to sound safety, planning, and policy decisions. The state of practice was documented; common barriers to successful implementation as well as critical success factors were identified; and guidance for state DOTs and their safety partners was developed and vetted by a variety of agencies. The guidebook provides state, regional, and local transportation agencies, professional associations, and interest groups with tools and techniques to integrate safety into traditional transportation planning and to measure the effectiveness and success of their integration efforts. (Author/publisher)
Abstract