Highway Safety Information System (HSIS) Files

HSIS is designed to provide data to be used in research conducted in the general public interest, which is intended for publication in a scientific journal or other national publication. By submitting this request, the user is promising to follow these guidelines. Educators who wish to use HSIS data for instructional purposes in a road safety course should contact HSIS staff directly at hsis@dot.gov. Users wishing to obtain data for purposes other than research or instruction should contact the States directly. HSIS staff will be pleased to provide contact names and addresses.

Before submitting a data request, please review the guidebooks for detailed descriptions and definitions for available variables for a given State or city. Contact hsis@dot.gov for more information about the most recent guidebooks.

In 1987, five States were chosen to be included in the HSIS: Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, and Utah. The primary criteria used in selecting the States were data availability (the range of data variables collected), quantity, and quality. In 1995, California, North Carolina, and Washington were added to increase the amount of data available and to provide better geographic coverage. In 2002, Ohio was added to the system. In 2002, Ohio was added to the system to provide additional curvature and grade inventories. Data from the Charlotte, NC, urban area were added in early 2011.

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool, version 3 (PBCAT 3), is an open-access crash typing application. PBCAT is designed to help State and local transportation safety practitioners and researchers develop new variables to describe collisions between motorists and non-motorists on trafficway or non-trafficway locations. High-quality crash type descriptors are frequently missing in crash databases but are important for varied safety approaches. PBCAT users can apply PBCAT crash types and contextual factors to help identify preventable crash scenarios and inform a variety of strategies and solutions to improve non-motorist safety. The data can be used to help improve the safety of infrastructure, vehicle and interactive technologies, behaviors, and policies to reduce non-motorist crashes and injuries.

You can access the PBCAT 3 application at this link: Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Analysis Tool, Version 3 (PBCAT 3) | FHWA

For inquiries, please contact: Carol Tan, Safety Management Team Leader | Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center | 6300 Georgetown Pike, HRDS-20, McLean, VA 22101 Phone: (202) 493-3315 | Fax: (202) 493-3374 | E-mail: carol.tan@dot.gov.

See the Submission section for details and a link to the Submission website.

Award Details

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is pleased to announce the Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award, part of the Highway Data Analysis Excellence Awards Program. The award is designed to encourage university students to use Highway Safety Information System (HSIS) data to investigate a topic that advances highway safety and to develop a paper to document their original research.

The Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award encourages university and community college students, as potential future highway safety professionals, to use HSIS data. The contest goals are to introduce students to using high-quality safety data, researching methods to derive recommendations, and making decisions using high-quality data.

Eligibility and Guidelines

The following requirements must be met by all applicants and submissions for the annual award.

Eligibility

The Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award research paper competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students, including those enrolled in community colleges, who are enrolled in United States-based degree-granting programs that support highway safety. These programs may include, but are not limited to, engineering, planning, statistics, psychology, and economics. Individuals who have graduated from a program within the 6 months prior to the submission date or have graduated in the Spring, Summer, or Fall semester of that school year are also eligible, if the paper is based on work conducted as part of their academic program while they attended school.

The contest will consider submissions by individual students or groups of students. Teams, however, must define one lead student and contributing students for the project (prizes reflect this requirement). Faculty can participate in an advisory role but cannot be coauthors on the paper.

Topic

Applicants must use HSIS data in their submitted papers, which include data from California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Washington, and the city of Charlotte, NC, to investigate a topic that advances highway safety. The author’s analysis must be conducted on data requested and acquired from HSIS. *See the data sections above.  

While not mandatory, applicants are encouraged to use data from other sources in support of the primary analysis using HSIS data, such as data from the following sources:

• Other States or localities;
• Long-Term Infrastructure Performance program;
• Motorcycle Crash Causation Study database;
• Roadway Lighting Database;
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration;
• Second Strategic Highway Research Program, such as Naturalistic Driving Study or Roadway Information Database; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; and/or
• U.S. Census Bureau.

For more information, please contact hsis@dot.gov.

Word Count

The length of each paper must be 2,500–5,000 words, including the abstract, text, references, and tables. Each table counts as 250 words. If a paper has 4 tables, the abstract, text, and references may be no more than 4,000 words. Papers not meeting this requirement may be rejected without review.

Original Research

For authors who have submitted papers to and received awards for previous competitions, HSIS expects that submission papers contain new, original material. All submissions should contain at least 50 percent new, original content, and the remaining 50 percent should not be verbatim content of previously published work or a manuscript previously submitted to the HSIS paper competition.

Evaluation Criteria

Papers submitted to the competition will be evaluated on the following criteria and assigned point values.

Objective of the Paper and Emphasis on Safety (10 points)

Is the objective of the paper clearly stated and relevant to the safety community? For example, using the HSIS data to model the impacts of signal spacing on capacity does not have an emphasis on safety. However, using HSIS data to model the impact of signal spacing on crashes is a more appropriate topic.

Importance of HSIS Data to Paper Topic (20 points)

Was the use of HSIS data critical to achieving the objective of the paper? The paper should focus on the use HSIS data and how critical it is in completing the objective of the study. HSIS can be used in conjunction with other data sources linked together.

Soundness of Methodology (20 points)

Is the approach appropriate for the data? The paper should describe and use appropriate data analysis techniques that suit the objective.

Analysis of HSIS Data (40 points)

Was the analysis of the HSIS data specifically, correctly, and clearly conducted? The paper should analyze HSIS data using the proposed statistical analysis techniques.

Discussion of Results (10 points)

Were the results discussed appropriately? The specific findings of the analysis are not part of the evaluation criteria; instead, this evaluation focuses on the discussion of results. For example, if a study on traffic signal spacing found no effect on crashes, this will not affect the evaluation of the paper. The student should discuss the implication of the results, including a critical review of methodology and potential for future research.

Request Data

To request data, you must create an account to place your request. Instructions to create an account are available in the first bullet. The second bullet has the link to sign up.

• Instructions to sign up with Jira Service Desk: 
  https://securedatacommons.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DESK/pages/2004189187/How-To+Sign+up+for+the+Service+Desk
• Signup Link:
  https://securedatacommons.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/user/login?destination=portals

Available Data

All HSIS liaison agencies maintain basic crash, roadway inventory, and traffic files. In addition, individual States also collect and provide other transportation datasets. See the Available Data link above.

Submission Details and Deadline

Refer to the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Awards website for the submission process. 

• Step 1: Develop and write paper per above requirements and guidelines.
• Step 2: Download the Submission Cover Page. 
• Step 3: Submit PDF (of all materials) via instructions/process outlined on the ITE website. Note: Make sure to “Login with ITE” before submitting a paper.

The turnaround time for requested HSIS data is normally less than 2 weeks; however, time needed to conduct analysis of these data varies per project. Please be sure to plan accordingly and in advance of the paper submission deadline.

HSIS is designed to provide data from participating States and the City of Charlotte for use in research conducted in the general public interest and intended for publication in a scientific journal or similar technical publication. By submitting this request, the data user is promising to follow these guidelines. Users wishing to obtain data for purposes other than inclusion in a scientific journal or technical publication or instruction must contact the participating States and the City of Charlotte and obtain permission to use their data.

The HSIS Research Paper Competition is jointly administered by FHWA and the Institute of Transportation Engineers.