Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation Planning (2006)

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Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning CHAPTER 7. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER This guidebook describes a transportation-planning process that integrates safety into key planning steps. Clearly, how a state DOT or MPO considers safety in its planning and decision-making processes will depend on numerous factors. In some cases, a separate comprehensive-safety-planning process or safety management system might already be in place, and thus there is no need for a rethinking of how planning is undertaken. In other situations, the state DOT or MPO might already be following many of the recommendations made in this guidebook. This chapter is intended to provide the user of the guidebook with one location where all of the assessment questions can be found. Exhibit 14 is repeated below as a guide of how this report can be used. The questions on the left side of this exhibit focus on important components of the transportation-planning process. The right side of the exhibit provides a reference on where additional information can be obtained on how safety can be integrated into that particular aspect of transportation- planning. Assessing The Planning Process….. Does the vision statement for the planning process include safety? Are there at least one planning goal and at least two objectives related to safety? Are safety-related performance measures part of the set being used by the agency? Are safety-related data used in problem identification and for identifying potential solutions? Are safety analysis tools used regularly to analyze the potential impacts of prospective strategies and actions? Are evaluation criteria used for assessing the relative merits of different strategies and projects including safety-related issues? Do the products of the planning process include at least some actions that focus on transportation safety? To the extent that a prioritization scheme is used to develop a program of action for an agency, is safety one of the priority factors? Is there a systematic monitoring process that collects data on the safety-related characteristics of transportation system performance, and feeds this information back into the planning and decision- making process? Are all of the key safety stakeholders involved in the planning process? See Exhibit 15 Exhibit 17 Exhibit 21 Exhibit 24 Exhibit 35 Exhibit 39 Exhibit 46 Exhibit 46 Exhibit 50 Chapter 4 Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER61

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning The assessment questions that were listed in front of each section are repeated below. This combined list of questions can be used as a baseline assessment of the degree to which a transportation-planning process fully integrates safety into its key components. Not only will these questions allow the user to determine where improvements can be made, but they provide a means of identifying the types of steps that might be taken to provide a greater sensitivity to safety concerns. ASSESSMENT OF THE INTEGRATION OF SAFETY INTO TRANSPORTATION-PLANNING Vision • Is safety incorporated into the current vision statement of the jurisdiction’s transportation plan? If not, why not? • Is safety an important part of the mandates and enabling legislation of key agency participants in the planning process? • Is safety an important concern to the general public and planning stakeholders? If not, should it be? • How is safety defined by community stakeholders? • What type of information is necessary and desired to educate the community on the importance of a safe transportation system? Goals and Objectives • Is safety incorporated into the current goals and objectives of the jurisdiction’s transportation plan? If not, why not? If so, what, if anything, needs to be changed in the way safety is represented? • How does the safety goal relate to the community understanding of safety as discovered through the vision development process? • Does the safety goal lead only to recommended project construction and facility operating strategies, or does it also relate to strategies for enforcement, education and emergency service provision? • Does the safety goal reflect the safety challenge of all modes of transportation that is, is it defined in a multi-modal way? • Do goal-related objectives provide sufficiently specific directions on how the goals are achieved? Are these objectives measurable? • Do the objectives reflect the most important safety-related issues facing a jurisdiction? • Can the desired safety-related characteristic of the transportation system be forecasted or predicted? If not, is there a surrogate measure or characteristic that will permit one to determine future safety performance? • What type of information is necessary and desired to educate the community on the importance of a safe transportation system as it relates to planning goals and objectives? • If target values are defined in objective statements (for example, fatal accidents will be reduced by 20%), have these targets been vetted through a technical process that shows that the target value can be reached? Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 62

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning Performance Measures • What are the most important safety-related characteristics of the transportation system that resulted from community outreach efforts to date? If performance measures are used, are these characteristics reflected in the articulated set of performance measures? • Will the safety performance of the transportation system (as defined in the performance measures) likely respond to the types of strategies and projects that will result from the planning process? That is, are the performance measures sensitive enough to discern changes in performance that will occur after program implementation? • Is the number of safety performance measures sufficient to address the safety concerns identified in the planning process? Alternatively, are there too many safety measures that could possibly “confuse” one’s interpretation of whether safety is improving? • Does the capability exist to collect the data that are related to the safety performance measures? Is there a high degree of confidence that the data and the data collection techniques will produce valid indicators of safety performance? Who will be responsible for data collection and interpretation? • Can the safety performance measures link to the evaluation criteria that will be used later in the planning process to assess the relative benefits of one project or strategy over others? If so, can the safety performance measures be forecast or predicted for future years? Analysis--Data • Given the definition of safety that resulted from the visioning and goals/objectives phases of the planning process, what types of data are needed to support the safety desires of the community? • Are these data available currently? If not, who should collect these data? Are there ways of collecting this data, or are there surrogate data items that can be used to reduce the cost and burdens of data collection? • Does the state (or region) have a systematic process or program for collecting safety-related data? If not, who should be responsible for developing one? • Is there a quality assurance/quality control strategy in place to ensure the validity of the data collected? If not, who should develop one? • Are there opportunities to incorporate data collection technologies into new infrastructure projects or vehicle purchases (e.g., surveillance cameras or speed sensors)? • Does the safety database include safety data for all modes of transportation that are relevant to the planning process (e.g., pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, intermodal collisions, etc.)? If not, what is the strategy for collecting such data? Who should be responsible? • What types of database management or data analysis tools are available to best use the data (e.g., a geographic information system)? Are such tools available to produce the type of information desired by transportation decision makers? • Are there other sources of data in your state or region that might have relevant data for safety-related planning (e.g., insurance records, hospital admissions, Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER63

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning non-profit organizations, etc.)? If yes, who should approach these groups to negotiate the sharing of data? • Are there any liability risks associated with the collection and/or reporting of accident data? If so, how can your agency be protected against such risks? Analysis—Tools • What is the scale of the safety problem being faced? Regional? Corridor? Site- specific? What tools are available to analyze safety problems at the appropriate scale of analysis? • What information is needed and desired by decision makers? Can existing analysis tools produce this information with reasonable levels of validity? • What are the possible types of strategies that could be implemented to deal with this safety problem? Are there analysis tools currently available in the agency or in partner agencies that can be used to determine the effectiveness of these types of strategies? If not, are there analysis tools available elsewhere? • Is the safety-planning challenge one that requires predicting or forecasting the future safety characteristics of a transportation system or facility? If so, what approach will be taken to predict such future performance? What are the underlying assumptions in this approach (e.g., future accident rates are the same in the future as they are today)? Or, in other terms, what are the sources of uncertainty associated with safety predictions? • Can existing analysis tools, or if necessary, the process of developing new ones, be undertaken in the timeframe associated with when decisions have to be made? If not, is there a more timely analysis procedure that can be used to produce information that is relevant to decision makers? • If the safety challenge includes problems associated with multiple modes of transportation, and if so, what tools can address multimodal or mode specific safety issues? Evaluation • For the types of evaluation decisions that need to be made, is an evaluation methodology in place that produces useful information for decision making? Will this methodology deal effectively with assessing tradeoffs among many different types of projects and strategies? • Is a simple rating sufficient to provide the type of information desired, or are multiple measures needed? • How will non-infrastructure-related strategies and actions be evaluated? For example, if dollars are expended on safety education programs, how will the relative effectiveness of these programs be evaluated, if at all? • Does the state or metropolitan area have reliable estimates of the costs to society of different accident types and/or severities? If not, where can these estimates be obtained? • Who will be conducting evaluations, that is, who will be assigning the points in a scoring scheme or estimating discounted benefits in a cost--benefit methodology? Does the capability exist to undertake such efforts in a fair and unbiased way? Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 64

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning • Are there computer-based tools that can help the evaluation process in an efficient manner? (see Appendix C) • How are the underlying assumptions in the evaluation process (such as value of life, discount factors, etc.) best explained to decision makers and to the general public? • Will the evaluation results be sufficiently sensitive to the collection of various inputs? Should sensitivity analyses be conducted? • What is the best way of presenting evaluation results to decision makers? Plan and Program Development • Does the transportation plan and program include safety-related projects and strategies? Are they appropriately identified in the documents? • If other comprehensive safety plans exist for the state or region, are the transportation plan and program consistent with the goals, performance measures, actions and strategies as indicated in these comprehensive plans? • If some form of prioritization scheme is used to rank projects in the programming process, is safety included in this scheme? If so, what is the relevant weight of safety compared to other factors? • Are key safety stakeholders involved in the final development of the transportation plan and program? • Are safety-related tasks or analysis included in the MPO’s Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) or the state DOT’s State Planning and Research (SPR) work program? System Monitoring • Is there a systematic program or strategy for monitoring the safety performance of the transportation system? If so, is it effective? If such a program does not exist, how can it be developed? • Is the feedback provided by the monitoring system used in refining goals, objectives, performance measures, problem identification, project analysis and evaluation? Is this feedback provided in a timely manner? • Are there new vehicle or system management technologies that can be used to provide the desired data more cost effectively? Can such data collection be integrated into other efforts by the state or region to collect system performance data? For example, if the state has an intelligent transportation system (ITS) architecture, is safety an important feature of this strategy? • Who are the major players in a safety management system? What are their responsibilities? Is there a need to define in more formal terms these responsibilities and inter-relationships? Similar to the list of questions presented above, the suggested steps found at the end of each section of the guide are summarized below to act as an overall guide on the types of actions transportation officials can take to integrate safety more effectively into the transportation-planning process. Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER65

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning SUGGESTED STEPS TO INTEGRATE SAFETY MORE EFFECTIVELY INTO TRANSPORTATION-PLANNING Vision • Prepare and present background information on transportation safety in the state or jurisdiction. This information can perhaps be best presented via video or DVD. Illustrate how significant the safety problem is not only on the personal level, but also to society as a whole. Describe safety for all modes: motor vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles, and transit. • Prepare and present information on what benefits are likely to occur to this safety situation with the implementation of a comprehensive safety strategy in the state or community. • Prepare prototypical vision statements that include safety as part of the vision (or identify such statements used by others in the U.S.). Present these statements at public meetings, board meetings, or in other forums where the visioning process is taking place to raise awareness toward the safety challenge. Goals and Objectives • Prepare prototypical safety-related goals and objectives for the safety problems identified through the public involvement process. Present and refine these goals and objectives given public and decision maker feedback. • If objectives are to be defined with recommended achievement targets (e.g., reduce fatalities by 20 percent over 10 years), conduct an analysis to determine if such a target can reasonably be achieved with 1) existing strategies, 2) by enhancing existing strategies, or 3) only be implementing significantly more draconian or costly strategies. • Use the information material prepared in the visioning process to educate stakeholders and decision makers about safety as it relates to goals and objectives. Performance Measures • Review safety-related performance measures used by similar agencies in the U.S. • Prepare a set of prototypical safety-related performance measures that reflect the goals and objectives that have been adopted for the planning effort. This set should be limited in number to only those that provide critical information on the safety performance of the transportation system, and that could presumably be affected by the types of strategies that will result from the planning process. • Discuss the proposed set of performance measures with those in the agency responsible for collecting the data that will be used in assigning values to these measures. In addition, discuss the measures with transportation modelers in the region or state to determine if the measures can be predicted in future years? Analysis—Data • For each of the goals, objectives and performance measures identified in the planning process, define the types of data that will be necessary to produce the desired information. Develop a data collection strategy…what are the sources of relevant data? Who is responsible for collecting this data? Who is responsible for putting this data into useable form? Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 66

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning • Investigate sources of data that currently exist (e.g., collected by federal agencies) that could be used to illustrate the safety challenges facing the state, metropolitan area or community. • Develop a memorandum of understanding or some other form of agreement with relevant agencies for developing a safety database. • Develop a template on how safety-related data will be portrayed, both for internal agency purposes as well as for public presentations. Test this template with public groups to assess its effectiveness in conveying safety information. • Involve staff members who are responsible for data collection and data management in the decisions relating to the overall strategy for safety-related database management. If a geographic information system is used, have staff members identify what steps must be taken to develop a fully operational system (e.g., developing consistent referencing systems among the different data sources). Analysis--Tools • Inventory the types of safety analysis tools that exist in the state or metropolitan area’s safety-related agencies. Relate those that exist to the types of safety problems that are being faced. If analysis tools do not exist for the identified types of problems, develop a strategy for developing or acquiring this type of analysis capability. • Starting with the tools listed in Appendix C, conduct a peer review of the existing safety analysis capabilities. Invite representatives from peer agencies who have experience with safety-related planning to assess the capabilities that currently exist in the state or metropolitan region. Have this peer review produce specific steps that need to be taken to improve the analysis capability for safety- related planning. • Develop a long term and coordinated data-collection and safety analysis strategy for the state and/or metropolitan area. This strategy would include a description of current capabilities, likely future safety problems, and the steps needed to put in place an analysis capability for dealing with such problems. This strategy should be developed cooperatively with all of the safety partners in the state or metropolitan area. • If not already available, the state, in cooperation with metropolitan planning organizations, should develop a table of accident reduction factors and their associated likely reductions in accidents and fatalities for different types of safety improvements (numerous sources are available for this). Some analysis may be necessary to complete this table; whereas some information may be obtained from prior research and experience. These factors need to be carefully reviewed for accuracy and relevance to the specific safety needs and conditions a planner is attempting to address. Many reduction factors were developed for locations with conditions that may or may not be transferable to the conditions in another metropolitan area or state. Such information on countermeasure effectiveness is critical for determining the benefits associated with safety-related improvements and for prioritizing investments. • For non-infrastructure or non-traffic operations strategies, such as safety education, marketing campaigns, and emergency management services, regions should work closely with safety partner organizations to determine a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of such strategies. This might include targeted before and after studies on selected programs, or simply Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER67

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning anecdotal evidence of what impacts such programs have had on public attitudes and behavior. Evaluation • Define early in the planning process what evaluation criteria will likely be used so that the data collection and analysis tool development and selection will be directly related to the information desired and needed. This effort would most likely be subject to community and decision maker involvement. It is best to define a limited number of critically important criteria that will be of overarching concern to decision makers. • Inventory the different safety-related evaluation methods currently in use in the state or metropolitan area. Determine gaps in evaluation capability that might affect the production of desired evaluation information. Select an appropriate/acceptable methodology for the region. • Periodically update (or develop, if not available) accident cost to society data. This is important in that the other benefit values used in a benefit cost analysis, those relating to reduced operating costs and reduced travel time, are usually updated on a periodic basis. Safety benefit values need to keep pace. • While the transportation-planning process is underway, develop methods and approaches that will be used when the evaluation process is undertaken. Do not wait until late in the planning process to do so! • Think carefully about how the definition of evaluation criteria will lead to the selection of the best projects or strategies. Is there any bias introduced into this selection process by the way evaluation criteria are defined? • Prepare prototypical presentation templates for safety information and obtain feedback from decision makers and from the general public on the level to which they effectively convey information. Plan and Program Development • Include safety stakeholders in the culminating planning steps leading to the approval of a transportation plan and program. • Develop safety priority factors that can be used to give safety-beneficial projects more priority in programming decisions. • Highlight the safety-related strategies and projects that are identified in the transportation plan and program. This might include a separate safety chapter or appendix in the transportation plan, and an indication in the program of which projects are primarily safety related. • Develop public marketing materials that highlight the safety benefits of the plan and program. System Monitoring • Analyze the current flow of safety information from the monitoring of transportation system performance to its use in analyzing and evaluating safety- related projects and strategies. Identify components of this information flow that can be improved. • Identify the major sources of safety data in the state and/or region. Conduct a forum that illustrates the importance of this data, and that identifies steps that can be taken to improve the process and substance of agency efforts. Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 68

Incorporating Safety into Long-Range Transportation-Planning • Develop a state or regional strategy for monitoring the safety of the multimodal transportation system. This monitoring should not only include the identification of current hazardous locations, but it should also proactively identify areas of potential hazard that can be addressed now rather than wait for the safety problem to occur. By conducting a process assessment with the questions found at the beginning of this chapter, and by implementing the suggested steps suggested above, the user of this guidebook will go a long way toward developing a transportation-planning process that is more sensitive to safety concerns. Additional material that will be helpful to the user of the guidebook is found in the appendices. In particular, Appendix C provides a brief description of many tools that are available to transportation planners and engineers for the analysis and evaluation of the safety aspects of project and system performance. Research and tool development for safety conscious planning will certainly continue in future years. Guidebook users are encouraged to keep abreast of these developments in that they will likely provide important capabilities to transportation practitioners. Chapter 7 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER69

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