Statewide Implementation of Innovative Safety Analysis Tools in Identifying Highway Safety Improvement Projects: Technical Report

US Transportation Collection2019PDFTech ReportTsapakis, IoannisHolik, WilliamGeedipally, SrinivasSamant, SwapnilDixon, Karen K.Texas A&M Transportation InstituteTexas A&M University SystemTexas Department of Transportation. Research and Technology Implementation OfficeUnited States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway AdministrationTexas A&M Transportation InstituteTexasUnited StatesHighway safetyImplementationImprovementsSafety analysisNetworksSafety managementProject managementHighway Safety Improvement ProgramHSIPNetwork ScreeningCAVSSafety DiagnosisProject SelectionFHWA/TX-19/5-6912-01-R1Project 5-6912-01Implementation Report:, June 2017\u2013August 2019The Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) aims to achieve a reduction in the number and severity of fatalities and serious injury crashes on all public roads by implementing highway safety improvement projects. Transportation agencies continuously try to find ways to improve their HSIP. Over the last few years, particular emphasis has been placed on employing advanced safety predictive methods and tools. In 2016, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) funded research project 0-6912 that developed a) a network screening process for roadway segments, b) preliminary crash analysis and visualization (CAVS) products, and c) a project prioritization tool. TxDOT implementation project 5-6912-01 developed a network screening tool that incorporates the 0-6912 network screening process, and improved and implemented the CAVS process and products to support the diagnosis and countermeasure selection processes at TxDOT. The network screening tool developed in this project automatically scans all on-system mainlane roadway segments in Texas using a dynamic sliding window method and calculates seven safety performance measures for each scanned segment. The performance measures can be used to rank and determine sites with the highest crash risk for further examination. The CAVS products display crash data and locations where certain types of safety countermeasures can be implemented. Among various improvements, the main benefits realized from the implementation of the CAVS products include an increase in the number of candidate projects identified by TxDOT districts between 31 percent to 57 percent and a reduction in the time and effort required to select projects by 20\u201350 percent.140