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Transportation Safety Planning

The mission of Transportation Safety Planning (TSP) is to reduce transportation fatalities and serious injuries by supporting comprehensive, system-wide, multimodal, data-driven, and proactive regional and statewide transportation planning processes that integrate safety into surface transportation decision-making. TSP is a comprehensive, system-wide, multimodal, proactive process that better integrates safety into surface transportation decision-making. Federal law requires that the State and Metropolitan transportation planning processes be consistent with Strategic Highway Safety Plans. It is important for the processes to consider projects and strategies to increase the safety of the transportation system for motorized and non-motorized users.

The important input and outcome elements that the TSP influences include the following:

• Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSP) - This is a statewide-coordinated safety plan that provides a comprehensive framework for reducing highway fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads. An SHSP identifies a State's key safety needs and guides investment decisions towards strategies and countermeasure with the most potential to save lives and prevent injuries.
• Statewide Long-Range Plan (SLRP) - The State DOTs develop a long-range statewide transportation plan. These plans vary from state to state; they may be policy-oriented or may include a list of specific projects but must assess the system needs over 20 or more years.
• Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) - The MTP is the statement of the ways the region plans to invest in the transportation system. The plan includes both long-range and short-range program strategies/actions that lead to the development of an integrated intermodal transportation system for the metropolitan area.
• Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP & TIP) - The STIP identifies priorities for transportation projects and must be fiscally constrained. The state DOT and MPOs solicits or identifies projects from rural, small urban, and urbanized areas. Projects are selected for inclusion in the STIP (& TIP) based on adopted procedures and criteria. TIPs that have been developed by MPOs for their regions must be incorporated directly, without change, into the STIP.
• Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) Projects - 23 U.S.C. 148(a)(4)(B) identifies the Highway safety improvement projects with the list of example eligible activities. The HSIP project must be a strategy, activity or project on a public road that is consistent with a State Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP), and corrects or improves a hazardous road location or feature, or addresses a highway safety problem. TSP activities and projects are eligible for HSIP funding.