Boone County’s Local Road Safety Plan

Summary

The systemic approach is particularly apt for specific crash types that occur less regularly or in areas where crashes are more widespread, as opposed to clustered. The systemic approach uses site characteristics to evaluate risk despite limited crash numbers. This is especially applicable for Kentucky’s Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) program due to the lack of sites with a history of severe crashes. As one example, Boone County’s LRSP sought to reduce deaths and serious injuries within the county by recognizing and prioritizing roadway safety improvements through the systemic approach.

North Carolina Department of Transportation: Long-Life Pavement Markings Safety Initiative

Georgia DOT Uses Curve Safety Assessment Devices for High Friction Surface Treatment Site Selection

Problem

RwD crashes are a major emphasis area for Georgia. To address this crash type, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) investigated and implemented several solutions to crashes in horizontal curves. One solution that GDOT is using to improve safety is the installation of high friction surface treatment (HFST) at curves where roadway departure crashes have the greatest likelihood of occurring. GDOT initially identified these curves using a traditional ball bank indicator. This approach is both time and resource intensive requiring two to three workers (driving, reading, and writing). Therefore, a new approach was tested: a market-ready curve safety assessment device that utilizes an electronic ball bank indicator traditionally used for setting safe speeds in curves. This market-ready device also has a website/database where all the raw data could be stored and access at any time.

Solution

GDOT rents devices for each of its Districts to collect data on all curves on the road network. Once the data is collected, GDOT manually locates each curve on the road network since data from the devices are imported as individual data points and may not be geospatially located correctly. GDOT will use the tool and database developed from the Georgia Tech research project to determine potential safety projects. Crash and historical probe speed data will be used with the curve data to determine which projects are to be implemented first by using a benefit/cost ratio ranking.

California Roadway Departure Safety Implementation Plan (RwDSIP)

California’s State Highway System (SHS) has approximately 15,100 center line miles. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) manages more than 50,000 lane miles of highways and freeways and is comprised of 12 districts. In 2012, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) developed the California Roadway Departure Safety Implementation Plan (RwDSIP) for Caltrans.

The RwDSIP identified a total of 7,198 candidate locations for countermeasures using two different approaches: 1) a systematic approach and 2) a comprehensive approach. The systematic approach identified crash types that specific countermeasures were designed to impact and selected clusters of locations where the targeted crashes exceeded the designated threshold, which varied for each countermeasure. Roadway characteristics and traffic volumes also were considered in candidate location selection.

Montana: Roadway Departure Study and Safety Information Management System

• The Safety Concern: Need for more robust safety analysis.
• The Solution: Development of safety performance functions and the software with which to use them to evaluate actual performance against a baseline.
• The Result: Increased ability to incorporate safety into more functions of the DOT.

(2015 National Roadway Safety Awards - Winner)

Arkansas: Improving Interstate Safety with Pavement Surface Treatments

• The Safety Concern: High rates of wet-weather roadway departure crashes on the Interstate.
• The Solution: Treatment of pavement with ultra-thin bonded wearing course.
• The Result: Significant decreases in roadway departure crashes related to wet conditions.

(2015 National Roadway Safety Awards - Winner)

Michigan: Statewide Non-Freeway Rumble Strip Initiative

• The Safety Concern: Fatal crashes related to lane departure.
• The Solution: Systemic application of centerline and shoulder rumble strips for high speed, non-freeway roadways.
• The Result: Significant reductions in fatal crashes.

(2015 National Roadway Safety Awards - Winner)

Delaware: High-Friction Surface Treatment Systemic Safety Improvements

• The Safety Concern: Roadway departures account for nearly 40% of Delaware’s fatal crashes, and half of them occur on curves.
• The Solution: High-friction surface treatments (HFST) dramatically improve traction and reduce fatal crashes.
• The Result: A 56% reduction in roadway departure crashes across the treated sites, and an overall benefit-cost ratio of 23.97.

(2017 National Roadway Safety Awards - Winner)

Data- and Technology-Driven Strategic Guardrail Management Program

In Virginia, approximately two thirds of fatalities are the result of roadway departure crashes. Various national research studies indicate that having appropriate guardrail can produce a crash reduction factor of up to 40 percent for roadway departure crashes. Therefore, the repair, replacement, and/or upgrade of guardrail systems is critical to the safety of the traveling public.

(2019 National Roadway Safety Awards - Winner)

Application of High-Friction Surface Treatment in Winter Road Conditions

High Friction Surface Treatment (HFST) has been used widely across the US to treat road departure crashes at horizontal curves with wet road conditions as a contributing factor. However, South Dakota has five times more roadway departure crashes involving winter road conditions than wet road conditions, and discovered that HFST had not been tested as a treatment for this crash type. Moreover, one third of roadway departure crashes occur on horizontal curves, even though horizontal curves account for less than 10 percent of the system.

(2019 National Roadway Safety Awards - Winner)