Newsletter - July/August 2004
Effort Underway to Update Safety Policies
The Office of Safety has pulled together a special team to address national safety policies. The Safety Policy Team includes Mark Bartlett, Assistant Division Administrator from Georgia; Jerry Roche, Safety Engineer from the Iowa Division; Mike Castellano, Safety Engineer from the Pennsylvania Division; Karen Croysdale, a Professional Development Program Participant from Maine; and Steve Ratke, a Professional Development Program Participant from Iowa. The team's charge is to systematically evaluate national safety policy in a number of areas and make recommendations to the leadership where clarifying guidance or revised policy statements are needed.
To date, the Safety Policy Team has compiled a list of more than 30 policy issues for consideration and is working with leadership to prioritize the effort. The discussions and analysis of the selected policy issues will include input from the Headquarters program owner, the DA Safety Council, the field safety specialists, and other program offices to ensure a wide range of perspectives are considered in formulating policy or guidance. In addition, input will be sought from various partners and stakeholder groups, as needed. For more information contact Mark Bartlett at 202 366-6403.
Human Factors for Transportation Engineers Workshop uses a range of interactive exercises to describe the skills and capabilities drivers need to use our roadways, discusses the relationship between specific highway standards and human needs, and includes "micro" case studies to allow participants to apply what they have learned.
Upcoming Workshops:
July 28, 2004 - Tampa Florida
August 18, 2004 - Baton Rouge Louisiana
August 23, 2004 - Madison Wisconsin
Contact Erin Kenley at 202-366-8556 or erin.kenley@fhwa.dot.gov.
Updated Road Safety Audit Website
FHWA, in cooperation with ITE, has recently updated the Road Safety Audit Website (http://www.roadwaysafetyaudits.org/). New documents have been added to the library, new content has been added to the home page, and a new benefits and legal sections have been created. Anyone wishing to contribute additional new content to this website should e-mail Louisa Ward at: Louisa.Ward@fhwa.dot.gov.
AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan
Three new Implementation Guides have been published and distributed. These Guides address reducing crashes involving: Older Drivers, Horizontal Curves, and Utility Poles. Four more will be coming this fall: Signalized Intersections, Unbelted Drivers and Occupants, Pedestrians, and Heavy Trucks.
A workshop was conducted in June to assess and enhance four draft guides: Motorcycles, Rural Emergency Management Services, Distracted/Fatigued Drivers, and Work Zones. These Guides and others relating to Impaired Driving, Novice Drivers, Bicycles, and Head-on Crashes on Freeways will be finalized and published in Summer 2005.
These Guides are part of the implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan and achieving a national fatality of rate of 1.0 death per 100 million VMT (vehicle miles traveled) by 2008. A bi-monthly newsletter, Lifelines, on the implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan is available at http://safety.transportation.org.
See pages 6 and 7 of the FHWA Safety Resources section of the newsletter for a complete listing of all the guides that are available. Contact ann.walls@fhwa.dot.gov to obtain copies of the guides. Contact Mr. Rudy Umbs at 202-365-3285 for more information on the Implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan.
NHI Course #137044 Improving Highway Safety with ITS - Under Development
Highway safety is FHWA's highest priority. More than 40,000 people die and 3 million are injured in motor vehicle crashes on highways each year. As more people travel more miles, the number of fatalities and injuries could increase unless significant improvements in highway safety are made. FHWA's goal is to make improvements that will help reduce the rate of fatalities from 1.5 fatalities per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled in 2001 to just 1.0 fatality per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled by 2008. To help meet this goal, FHWA's Resource Center and Office of Safety as well as the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, are developing a 2-day course for the National Highway
Institute (NHI), entitled Improving Highway Safety with Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) (#137044).
The course will be based on a series of 1.5-day workshops that FHWA currently is sponsoring for local transportation agencies. The new course will be geared toward traffic operations and ITS engineers at all levels, planners responsible for highway and transportation improvements, public safety professionals responsible for transportation safety, researchers interested in highway safety and ITS, and others who want to learn more about these topics.
Like the workshops, the course will show how ITS applications can be used to improve safety, such as replacing stationary signs with electronic versions. In addition, participants will learn about ways to encourage collaboration between safety- and ITS-related programs. The course also will include examples of local applications of ITS and breakout sessions to foster additional discussions about specific technology and safety issues.
Attendees will learn about various project experiences and planning issues at the project and system levels. Instructors will present and compare ITS applications with more traditional approaches to improving safety, and participants will explore how ITS can complement the safety improvements that transportation agencies currently are using. The goals of the course are to accelerate the introduction and evaluation of ITS applications, examine the results from deploying ITS, review the procedures and requirements of strategic safety planning, and increase the transportation community's awareness of safety improvements that can be achieved with ITS.
FHWA is making the course broad enough in scope to be delivered across the Nation, but also is ensuring that the contents are flexible enough to be tailored to address local problems. Although the NHI course will not be available until 2005, FHWA plans to provide additional opportunities for people to participate in the 1.5-day workshops until NHI can offer the full course.
For more information about the course or scheduling for the workshops or course, contact: Mac Lister, 708-283-3532, mac.lister@fhwa.dot.gov or Morris Oliver, 202-366-2251, mac.lister@fhwa.dot.gov
A hard copy of the Let's Work Together to Save Lives brochure is now available. To receive copies contact ann.walls@fhwa.dot.gov. You can view the brochure on-line at http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/media/brochures.htm
Safety Conscious Planning - What Is It? Why Is It Needed? Who Are the Key Players? To find out more about Safety Conscious Planning visit the FHWA Safety website http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/
Highway Safety Human Factors Scan Tour
From June 11 to June 27, a nine member scan tour team, which consisted of personnel from FHWA, AASHTO, and academia, visited transportation centers of excellence in human factors safety research in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France. The primary objective of the tour was to learn how the various research groups plan, develop, and conduct human factors research and how they put the findings into practice. The following list consists of categories of implementable practices found in the countries visited that could be transferable to US roadway transportation programs.
- "Self-Explaining" Roads - This is a roadway design perspective which requires that roadways be designed and built in such a way that road users readily understand what is required of them in terms of vehicle speed, traffic flow, passing, lane change, etc.
- Driving Simulators And Infrastructure Design Guidelines - There is growing international interest in using driving simulators in conjunction with road validation studies to help define the contents of guideline documents.
- Interdisciplinary Roadway Research Teams - The regular use of a combination of research disciplines (e.g., highway designers traffic engineers, human factors psychologists, software and hardware personnel, and technicians) on roadway projects is a strategy that is becoming more widespread in Europe.
- Speed Management - All European countries visited are dedicating a good portion of their research effort into this area with excellent results. The reduction of speed on American highways would make a significant contribution to the reduction of fatalities and crashes.
- Human Centered Focus - This concerns a way of thinking that considers the capabilities, limitations, and requirements of human users in the design, implementation, and operation of roadway infrastructure systems.
- Cognitive Models - Little effort has been expended world-wide to develop behavioral models that help us understand why drivers and pedestrians do the things that do. The development of these models would be of considerable value to highway designers, highway planners, and traffic engineers as well as behavioral researchers
- Top-Down Human Factors Direction - With the increasing awareness
of the human-centered perspective and of the importance of human
centered research, a high-level group in FHWA should be formed
to oversee and coordinate the behavioral activities of transportation
related projects and issues.
Saving Lives & A Vital Goal Vision: Improving Transportation for a Strong America. Goal: To continually improve highway safety by reducing the number of highway fatalities and injuries including large trucks. Ensuring safe travel on highways is a guiding principle throughout the FHWA. Focus: High-risk areas through technical assistance, research, training, data analysis, and public information as well as through compliance and education. The FHWA is working with safety partners to heighten safety awareness within the highway community, business, industry, and the Public. Top Priorities: Roadway Departure, Intersections, and Pedestrians |
| Dates |
Location |
Event |
|---|---|---|
July 25 – 29 |
Nashville, TN |
Traffic Records Forum http://www.nsc.org/trafficrecordsforum/ |
| July 31 – Aug. 4 | Bernalillo, NM |
National LTAP Meeting http://www.ltapt2.org/ |
August 1 – 4 |
Lake Buena Vista, FL |
ITE Annual Meeting & Exhibit http://www.ite.org/ |
August 28 – September 3 |
Nationwide |
National Stop on Red Week http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov |
September 10 – 17 |
New Orleans, LA |
National Safety Council Annual Congress & Expo http://www.nsc.org/ |
September 12 – 15 |
Detroit, MI |
North American Conference on Elderly Mobility |
September 12 – 15 |
Atlanta, GA |
American Public Works Association (APWA) http://www.apwa.net/ |
September 16 – 21 |
Philadelphia, PA |
AASHTO Annual Meeting www.aashto.org |
September 26 – 29 |
Honolulu, HI |
Governors Highway Safety Association www.statehighwaysafety.org |
October 10 |
Nationwide |
Put the Brakes on Fatalities Day www.brakesonfatalities.org |
November 13 – 17 |
Los Angeles, CA |
International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference http://iacp.expoexchange.com/ |
