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Pages 43-64

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From page 43...
... 43   This chapter provides four case examples based on the literature review, survey responses, and follow-up interviews. The case examples highlight both basic and advanced practices for identifying, prioritizing, and evaluating HSIP projects.
From page 44...
... 44 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program challenges. The highlights are based on a combination of information obtained from the literature review, survey, and interviews.
From page 45...
... Case Examples 45   Project Prioritization The purpose of project prioritization is to develop a portfolio of projects that maximize the expected safety benefit (i.e., lives saved and injuries prevented) for the amount of funds invested.
From page 46...
... 46 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program traffic volume, and the nonlinear relationship between crashes and traffic volume (2)
From page 47...
... Case Examples 47   available (e.g., roundabout)
From page 48...
... 48 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program For example, North Carolina identified more than 3,000 intersections statewide as potentially hazardous locations based on the intersection-related warrants and crash pattern recognition factors. In parallel, North Carolina determined that converting two-way stop-controlled intersections to all-way stop-controlled intersections is a cost-effective safety strategy based on postimplementation evaluations of past projects and supporting literature.
From page 49...
... Case Examples 49   The Hazard Elimination Program (HEP) develops larger improvement projects ($400,000– $1 million)
From page 50...
... 50 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program Focusing on target crashes helps to determine if the project achieved the initial objective (i.e., to address a specific crash type or crash contributing factor)
From page 51...
... Case Examples 51   spot approach and then identifying sites with common characteristics for similar treatment. This hybrid approach helps to identify projects with a demonstrated safety issue that can be treated with systemic countermeasures that can also compete with spot projects on the basis of benefit-cost ratio.
From page 52...
... 52 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program and identify risk factors. To overcome this challenge, North Carolina uses a hybrid approach, employing safety warrants to first identify sites with high potential for safety improvement and then reviewing these sites for potential application of systemic countermeasures.
From page 53...
... Case Examples 53   • Only the most recent available 5 years of Oregon DOT-reported crashes shall be used for crash analysis. • Projects shall be prioritized based on Oregon DOT-approved prioritization method, such as benefit-cost ratio.
From page 54...
... 54 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program targeted crashes at or above a designated threshold level. Countermeasures include curve treatments, rumble strips, delineation, high-friction surface treatment, tree management, and alcohol/speed enforcement.
From page 55...
... Case Examples 55   • Regions share the 300% draft lists with the local agencies and seek local agency input. • Local agencies submit proposals for additional projects for inclusion in the draft list.
From page 56...
... 56 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program Funding Allocation The ARTS Program allocates funds to the five Oregon DOT regions based on the proportion of fatal and serious injury crashes within the past 5 years in each region. For a given region, total funding is divided equally between the spot and systemic components.
From page 57...
... Case Examples 57   • Oregon developed a Benet/Cost Analysis Worksheet to calculate benet-cost ratios for the ARTS Program (see Figure 21)
From page 58...
... 58 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program • Based on the HSM Part C spreadsheets, Oregon developed a Microsoft Excel workbook titled Cost-Effectiveness Analysis for Pedestrian/Bike Systemic Improvements. The user enters applicable roadway, traffic, and observed pedestrian and bicycle crash data on separate tabs for segments and intersections as appropriate.
From page 59...
... Case Examples 59   identify other sources of data that could be used to identify priority location and other funding opportunities to help address these locations. One initiative is to fund safety projects from smaller pots of money that do not require the same time frame as the TIP.
From page 60...
... 60 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program • Systemic approach: Identify promising cost-effective countermeasures and then identify sets of locations where it is cost-effective to apply the countermeasure. • Corridor approach: Identify sections of highway that have significant numbers of severe crashes, of either all or specific types, and apply a coordinated set of engineering, enforcement, and education initiatives to address or mitigate the problem.
From page 61...
... Case Examples 61   applications with a combined federal funding request that exceeds the established regional allocation, the region's applications with the highest return on safety are included in the planning process until reaching the region's maximum federal HSIP budget. Pennsylvania distributes HSIP funding in the following three major categories: • Provide $500,000 base HSIP funding for each of the 23 RPOs and one independent county.
From page 62...
... 62 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program Project Evaluation Pennsylvania has a robust evaluation component to the HSIP (21)
From page 63...
... Case Examples 63   • Pennsylvania uses an extensive list of factors for assessing and prioritizing proposed projects, including both crash-based and non-crash-based factors. Project Implementation • Although Pennsylvania does not allow for any shortcuts to implement spot or systemic HSIP projects, preliminary engineering is not required for countermeasures with standard drawings, such as signs, pavement markings, rumble strips, guide rails, median barrier, and lighting (21, 22)
From page 64...
... 64 Practices for Balancing Safety Investments in a Comprehensive Safety Program Finally, Pennsylvania noted challenges related to systemic project evaluation. The primary issue is that it takes a lot of time to properly evaluate systemic projects.

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