Strategies to Improve State Traffic Citation and Adjudication Outcomes (2023)

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C-1   Research Objective and Results The primary objective of BTSCRP Project BTS-04 was to improve states’ ability to track cita- tions from issuance through adjudication, facilitating their ability to identify and track problem drivers. Project deliverables are intended to provide guidance and resources to state- and local- level stakeholders, including highway safety officials and members of departments of transpor- tation (DOTs), judiciaries, and departments of motor vehicles (DMVs), to assist with identifying and implementing practices to improve citation tracking. Key deliverables include: • A final report and guidance resource titled Final Report: Tracking State Traffic Citation and Adjudication Outcomes • A summary presentation entitled Tracking State Traffic Citation and Adjudication Outcomes: Summary Presentation. This presentation provides an overview of the project and includes detailed notes that agencies can use to inform their discussions with other stakeholder groups. Slides may be printed individually to act as references to support efforts at process improvement. • An interactive toolkit entitled Toolkit for Improving Citation and Adjudication Tracking: Inter­ active Challenges, Strategies & Solutions. This toolkit is based on a Microsoft PowerPoint pre- sentation that, when viewed in slideshow mode, provides users with interactive strategies including voiceovers for further description. This toolkit is designed to be used by stakeholders to support their decision-making, engagement, and outreach efforts. • Fact sheets presenting further resources and state-by-state summaries of unification status • This technical memorandum entitled Implementation of Research Findings and Products This technical memorandum will: (a) propose strategies on how to best put the research findings/ products into practice; (b) identify possible institutions that might take leadership in applying the research findings/products; (c) identify issues affecting potential implementation of the findings/ products and propose possible actions to address these issues; and (d) propose methods of iden- tifying and measuring the impacts associated with implementation of the findings/products. Implementation-related activities will be presented through the RE-AIM (reach, effective- ness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance) framework (Glasgow, 2002; Glasgow, Vogt, and Boles, 1999), which has been adapted from the health care industry for use in a traffic safety context. The RE-AIM framework is “intended to aid the planning, conduct, evaluation, and reporting of studies having the goal of translating research into practice” (Green and Glasgow, 2006). Each dimension of this framework is discussed in the following sections (Green and Glasgow, 2006; www.re-aim.org). A P P E N D I X C Technical Memorandum: Implementation of Research Findings and Products

C-2 Strategies to Improve State Traffic Citation and Adjudication Outcomes Reach Did the research reach the intended audience? The audience for this research and its outputs is anticipated to be broad, including state- and local-level traffic safety officials across agencies and organizations including law enforcement, judicial, and DMV personnel. To ensure that this audience is able to utilize the products, it is important to identify ways to improve and measure their reach. Activities and Organizations Promoting Reach To assist in reaching all parties who may benefit from project findings to effect change, the summary presentation, toolkit, final report, and supporting materials should be made avail- able to individuals in state and local agencies including law enforcement and departments of motor vehicles, state highway safety office (SHSO) officials including specialists such as impaired driving coordinators, judicial personnel including Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors (TSRPs) and Administrators of the Courts (AOCs), liaisons including Judicial Outreach (JOL) and Law Enforcement (LEL) liaisons, legislative bodies, governors’ offices, and other interested parties. In particular, the results will be of interest to members of state Traffic Records Coordinating Committees (TRCCs), who are tasked with improving state-level data collection, management and analyses. These documents will also be of significant help to private entities including con- sultants, technology firms including database and citation software developers, and researchers who study ways to improve citation systems. The results of the project may be disseminated to state and local agencies through partner- ing organizations and national associations. Stakeholder representatives from national orga- nizations, such as the GHSA, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) are anticipated to be integral to efforts to identify additional stakeholders and distribute key research findings. Reach can be measured by the number of jurisdictions and/or organizations that have access to the research product, as well as the degree of geographic and organizational diversity of these recipients. Specific assessment criteria for assessing reach may include, but should not be limited to, the following: • The number of copies of the report disseminated though TRB and follow-up inquiries; • The number of hits for report downloads on the TRB website; • The number of contacts and type of contacts acquired by the TRB; and • The number of requests for and actual presentations of the material. Effectiveness Did the research achieve its target outcomes? The primary assessment criterion for determining project effectiveness will be the research’s impact on key outcomes, in this case the extent to which state and local agencies have used the guidance to improve citation and adjudication tracking. Jurisdictions implementing this guid- ance may be surveyed to determine if the research products helped them to identify areas for improvement, how the research products impacted their citation data creation, storage, and tracking, and the cost associated with implementing the suggestions in the toolkit, along with any unanticipated consequences.

Technical Memorandum: Implementation of Research Findings and Products C-3   Adoption Did the organizations use the research to achieve their missions? The products of this research are intended to benefit state- and local-level agencies including law enforcement, departments of motor vehicles, and courts, by facilitating the development and deployment of improvements in citation and adjudication tracking, particularly with regard to digitization. Project deliverables, particularly the toolkit, are designed to be practical, action- able, and usable by a wide range of stakeholders, while allowing for state and local variations in regulation, existing systems and organizational structures, and specific needs. Adoption may be facilitated by collaborations among state- and local-level agencies/jurisdictions and those in other states in similar legal and regulatory situations, as well as with the organiza- tions above, including GHSA, AAMVA, and NCSC. As the toolkit guidelines emphasize the importance of communication and planning, such collaborations would both support adoption and implementation of the toolkit strategies. Similar to metrics of effectiveness, agencies and jurisdictions that engage with the toolkit may be surveyed to determine the extent to which they found the guidance helpful and incorporated it into their planning and deployment. These data may be further analyzed by comparing the proportion of agencies/states that obtain the guidance to those that implement some or all of it, as well as analyses of the characteristics of states that adopt proposed actions, including geo- graphic and regulatory characteristics such as current and goal-state digitization and unification standards. Implementation Were program components implemented as intended? What aspects were most and least useful? Implementation concerns the degree to which the project products provide meaningful guid- ance, or the degree to which they are useful in the real world. In this case, implementation may be evaluated in a similar manner to adoption and effectiveness, by surveying institutions that have reviewed and potentially utilized the project toolkit. Feedback from agencies on the degree to which implementation was guided and assisted by toolkit guidance would be beneficial for future iterations. Activities to Mitigate Potential Implementation Barriers It is also important to consider barriers or challenges to implementation. There are a number of potential barriers to successful implementation of citation tracking systems; to mitigate these, a risk register presenting the main risks to successful implementation and mitigation strategies for each was created. While the summary presentation, toolkit, and final report include a more extensive consideration of challenges, barriers, and risks, this register presents an overview of some of the most salient barriers to success. The risks identified within this section are classified with ratings for three aspects of each indi- vidual risk: the probability of that risk occurring; the impact on the project cost, schedule, or scope; and the ability of that risk to be mitigated. These levels are defined in Table C-1. (Note: Risks have been rated using the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office [ITS JPO] standard, which may be found at: http://www.its.dot.gov/project_mang/index.htm). Table C-2

C-4 Strategies to Improve State Traffic Citation and Adjudication Outcomes Risk Probability Risk Rating/Impact on Cost, Schedule, and/or Scope Ability to Mitigate Risk 4 = High Risk (>10%) 4 = Catastrophic: Major Impact 4 = None 3 = Medium Risk (Between 5% and 10%) 3 = Critical: Significant Impact 3 = Low 2 = Low Risk (Between 1% and 5%) 2 = Marginal: Low Impact 2 = Medium 1 = Negligible Risk (Less than 1%) 1 = Negligible: Insignificant Impact 1 = Excellent Table C-1. Risk rating and probability definitions. Category Description Risk Probability Risk Impact Mitigation Rating and Strategy Policy Existing or new state and/or local regulations and policies affect the applicability of toolkit guidance 4 2 1 – While some aspects of toolkit guidance are likely to be more or less applicable to specific implementations depending on the local regulatory context, guidance was designed to be flexible and broad enough to provide actionable benefit in nearly all circumstances. Institutional Some agencies may resist engagement in processes related to improving citation tracking 3 2 1 – Implementation strategies will vary by states and jurisdictions depending on a number of local factors including buy-in. The toolkit includes strategies to improve support among varying institutions. Institutional Funding is likely to be a limiting factor to change due to the need to purchase equipment and software 4 3 2 – In some cases funding may preclude full adoption of digital record tracking. This may be somewhat mitigated by available grants, but is likely to pose a limitation in some jurisdictions and agencies. However, incremental improvements as suggested in the toolbox will still prove beneficial. Personnel Individuals may resist change, from personal or agency perspectives 4 2 1 – The toolkit includes suggestions for increasing stakeholder engagement at all levels. In fact, individual engagement is critical for success, and may be facilitated by illustrating direct benefits and enlisting champions within agencies. Technical There may be substantial technical challenges incorporating newer data systems into existing ones 4 3 2 – Technical incompatibility may limit the degree to which systems may be updated and upgraded. In some cases this may be mitigated by additional back-end database alignment, but may pose a limiting factor in other situations. Table C-2. Risk matrix.

Technical Memorandum: Implementation of Research Findings and Products C-5   summarizes the main challenges anticipated when implementing the citation tracking guidance, the likelihood and severity of each risk, and strategies for mitigating each risk’s potential impact on the project. Risks are identified using a taxonomy that includes policy, institutional, person- nel, and technical risks. Further information on these risks and others may be found in the final project report and toolkit documents. Maintenance Did the program produce lasting effects? How did the program evolve? Finally, it is important to consider the long-term implications of the project’s products and recommendations. Given the evolving nature of citation tracking technology and regulatory surroundings, it would be beneficial to track how this guidance is consulted and implemented over time, as well as to update recommendations as standards and practices change. This may be accomplished by continued engagement with stakeholders at state and local levels, as well as with national organizations with vested interests including the GHSA. Future iterations may be considered to update recommendations in light of changing standards and technological implementations. References 1. Green L. W., and R. E. Glasgow. Evaluating the relevance, generalization, and applicability of research and issues in external validation and translation methodology. Evaluation & The Health Professions, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2006, pp. 126–153. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278705284445. 2. Glasgow, R. E. Evaluation of theory-based interventions: The RE-AIM model. In Health behavior and health education, 3rd ed. (K. Glanz, F. M. Lewis, and B. K. Rimer, eds.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002, pp. 531–544. 3. Glasgow, R. E., T. M. Vogt, and S. M. Boles. Evaluating the public health impact of health promotion inter- ventions: The RE-AIM framework. American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 89, 1999, pp. 1322–1327. 4. RE-AIM.org. Website. http://www.re-aim.org. Accessed November 2021.