Enhancing Rural Road Safety in Alabama: Statistics, Tools, and Training

1. Rural road safety Timothy E. Barnett, P.E., PTOE ALDOT StateSafety Operations Engineer ACCA 2011 Annual Meeting

2. Alabama Crash Statistics - 2010 • 862 people killed in 790 fatal crashes • One traffic crash was reported every 246 seconds • One person was injured in a traffic crash every 13 minutes and 43 seconds • One person was killed in a traffic crash every 10 hours and 10 minutes • Most Alabama crashes (74.6%) occurred in urban areas, but most fatalities (58.8%) occurred in rural areas

3. Statistics – Type of Roadway - 2010

4. Highway Safety Manual • Brings safety to same level as other parameters • Integrate safety into transportation decision-making processes • Quantify effect of decisions on future crash frequency and severity • Increase our accountability, measure our performance, and meet legislatively mandated priorities • Fill the gap between state of art and state of practice • HSM becomes a tool routinely used by transportation/roadway professionals

5. Nominal versus Substantive Safety Examined in reference to compliance with standards, warrants, guidelines and sanctioned design procedures The expected or actual crash frequency and severity for a highway or roadway *Ezra Hauer, ITE Traffic Safety Toolbox Introduction, 1999

6. HSM Implementation • Implementation Study Ongoing • Study to determine optimal method to implement HSM at state and local gov’t agency levels • Focuses on users & user needs, data needs, inventory, & gaps, software evaluation & deployment, and preliminary SPF analysis • HSM Training Provided through ALDOT to over 120 individuals (State and County) • Incorporating HSM into SHSP Program Elements • Utilizing HSM in Statewide, Systematic Safety Investigations

7. Training • Highway Safety Manual Training • Twenty-three Counties Represented at ALDOT HSM Training Session in September 2010 • Eight Counties Represented at the LTAP HSM Training Session in October 2010 • Next Session – ALDOT HSM Training Scheduled in October 2011 (Sept. 1 registration deadline) • CARE Software Training • LTAP Low-Cost Safety Improvements and RSA Training • Alabama Safety Summit – November 9, 2011 • Rural Roads Safety Workshop – Proposed for 2012

8. Highway Safety Software • CARE (current) – used by ALDOT & all Counties (Critical Analysis Reporting Environment) • CORRECT (current) – used by ALDOT (Cost-benefit Optimization for the Reduction of Roadway Environment Caused Tragedies) • RISE (planned) (Roadway Improvement Safety Evaluation) • SafetyAnalyst (being investigated) HSM Companion Software

9. Example CARE Capabilities • Houses Crash Records and a limited set of geometric data records • Information Mining • Analyze Data • Collision Diagrams • Non-Categorical and Narrative Data Searching • GIS Capabilities

10. CORRECT • Developed in 1973 • Combination of CARE data and algorithms in spreadsheet format • Cost-benefit evaluation to determine optimal of alternate safety treatments • Used by ALDOT Safety Section, but available to Counties and Local Agencies

11. RISE • May benext generation CORRECT • Identifies crash patterns for a given site or segment • Retrieves data directly from CARE • Not a network screening tool, but a project specific screening tool • Intended for use as a tool to analyze crash data during project development • Useful for Design Exception evaluation • Anticipate that variations of RISE will have many future roadway safety applications

12. Resources • www.highwaysafetymanual.org • www.cmfclearinghouse.org • www.safehomealabama.gov • safety.fhwa.dot.gov • www.alabamat2.org • care.cs.us.edu • usroadwaysafety.org • www.ruralsafety.umn.edu

13. Questions?