IMPROVING HIGHWAY SAFETY WITH ITS

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IMPROVING HIGHWAY SAFETY WITH ITS
Talking Technology and Transportation (T3)
Host Mac Lister FHWA Resource Center
September 7, 2006
Presenters Rob Maccubbin, Mitretek
Systems Emily Parkany, Mitretek Systems
Discussant Morris Oliver, FHWA Office of
Safety
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IMPROVING HIGHWAY SAFETY WITH ITSExecutive
Summary

• NHI Course No. 137044

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Why Attend Course

• Increase awareness of deploying ITS to improve
  highway safety
• Accelerate the introduction of ITS applications
  into traditional safety projects
• Increase recognition of the contribution ITS can
  make in improving highway safety

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Purpose of CourseDevelop Collaboration and
Coordination

• Increase awareness of ITS applications among
  safety professionals
• Identify opportunities for collaboration between
  Safety and ITS personnel
• Reinforce shared goals and objectives
• Accelerate the introduction of ITS applications
  in traditional safety approaches

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Course Goals

• Provide participants with basic tools and
  resources
• Discuss specific actions
• Identify Out of the Box innovative approaches
• Provide participants direction for finding more
  information

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Audience

• Safety and ITS Professionals
• Planners and Designers
• Operations and Maintenance Staff
• State DOT, MPO, city and county agencies
• Contractors who provide services
• to state and local agencies

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Format

• 2 Day Course
• 5 Lessons
• Presentation/mini-lectures
• Open discussion local issues
• Case Study
• 6 Interactive activities
• Fishbowl Exercise
• Small group activities
• Individual action plan

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• 4.9 persons killed every hour
• 42,643 in 2003 (compared to 58,000 U.S.
  fatalities during 8-year Vietnam war)
• 330 persons injured every hour
• 2.9 million injuries in 2003

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Average Day

• 117 fatalities a day
• 30 of daily fatalities (35) are under
• the age of 25
• Daily financial loss is
• 630 million

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FHWA Safety Goal

• Reduce roadway fatality rate from 1.5 per million
  VMT in 2001 to 1.0 by 2008
• Highway Safety must be improved, and ITS has the
  potential to help

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Sample Safety Goals

• Reduce vehicle, bicycle pedestrian fatalities
• Improve the safety of highway-railroad crossings
• Improve the safety of commercial vehicle
  operations
• Minimize incident response times
• Improve data decision support systems
• Reduce intersection, pedestrian, and/or roadway
  departure crashes

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Statewide Safety Planning
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Course Topics

• Improving Safety with ITS
• Work Zone Case Study
• Nominal Vs. Substantive Safety
• Safety Strategic Planning and ITS Deployment
  Process
• Safety and ITS Collaboration
• Organizational and Individual Level Action Plans

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ITS Definition

• Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) means
  electronics, communications, or information
  processing used singly or in combination to
  improve the efficiency and/or safety of a surface
  transportation system.
• 23 CFR Part 940

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10 Places ITS Improves Safety

• Intersections Interchanges
• Pedestrians Bicycles
• Highway-Rail Grade Crossings
• Road Weather
• Other Adverse Roadway Conditions

• Speed Management
• Work Zones
• Incident Response Mitigation
• Public Transportation
• Archived Information Management

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Case StudyBig-I Project Characteristics

• Two-year interchange rebuild project
• Intersection of two Interstates
• ADT - 300,000 vehicles
• 111 lane-miles of construction
• 45 new and 10 rehabilitated bridges

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Big-I Work Zone Safety Challenges

• Traffic pattern changes
• Nighttime closures
• Alternate routes
• Information on travel route availability
• Potential for extreme congestion
• Incident management in work zone

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Traditional Approaches

• Advanced Signing
• Cones/Barrels
• Barriers
• Detour Signing
• Temporary Pavement Markings
• Nighttime Lighting

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Big-I Work Zone ITS Applications

• Traffic Management Center (TMC)
• Incident detection using cameras sensors
• Traveler information disseminated over multiple
  outlets
• Incident response using motorist assistance
  vehicles

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Big-I Work Zone ITS Benefits

• NO FATALITIES
• Reduced crashes secondary crashes by 32
• Reduced incident management times from 45 to
  25-mins
• Saved effort through automation
• Reduced traffic through work zone
• Identified responded to areas that were
  difficult to navigate

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Nominal vs. Substantive Safety

• Nominal Safety
• Compliance with standards, warrants, guidelines
  sanctioned design procedures
• Substantive Safety
• Involves pro-active enhancements
• Employs available resources, including
  technology, design, maintenance, enforcement
  emergency services

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Nominal Safety Example Sharp Curve After Long
Tangent

• Curve Design Speed of 35 mph is acceptable
• But speed differential value gt12 mph is known to
  pose high safety risk of 10 higher crash rates

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Moving Toward Substantive Safety

• Work to understand the context of hot-spots
• Develop pro-active system-wide safety
  enhancements that help prevent crashes
• Use data to help predict potential problems
• Employ all available resources, including
  technology, design, maintenance, enforcement,
  emergency services

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How ITS SupportsSafety Countermeasures

• Enhance safety solution
• Facilitate data collection performance
  measurement
• Enable automated enforcement
• Enable real-time performance monitoring

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Designing ITS-Supported Countermeasures

• Identify
• Safety challenge
• Performance measures data requirements
• Institutional issues
• Traditional approaches to address challenge
• ITS to support traditional approaches
• Form
• ITS-supported countermeasure

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Strategic Planning/ITS Deployment

• Safety Strategic Plan
• ITS Deployment Process
• Synergies between them

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How Does Safety ITS Collaboration Help?

• Collaboration will help
• Identify ITS for highway safety challenges data
  collection needs
• Focus the deployment of ITS to improve
  system-wide highway safety (beyond the hot spots)
• Develop new ITS applications for
• regional statewide safety
• challenges

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Course Activities

• Identify Safety Challenges
• Safety Priority Area Voting
• Develop ITS-Supported Countermeasures
• Develop Collaborative Action Plans

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Fishbowl Exercise
ITS Group Listening
Safety Group Discussing
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Identify Safety Challenges
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Identify Safety Priority Areas
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Develop ITS-Supported Countermeasures
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Develop Collaborative Action Plans
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Summary of Collaboration Activities

• Activity I Identify high level strategic goals
  identify performance measures
• Activity II Discuss partnerships benefits of
  collaborating
• Activity III Identify specific activities to
  enable organization-level actions
• Activity IV Develop an individual action plan

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Why Offer the Course?

• Foster collaboration among Safety and ITS
  professionals by identifying common goals and
  areas of synergy.
• Provide the potential for operational
  improvements that can substantially improve
  safety.
• Identify ITS strategies used around country and
  discuss how these approaches improved safety.

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Collaboration and Coordination

• Improve decision making by effectively
  coordinating and communicating across ITS and
  Safety professions
• Foster proactive attitude as opposed to reactive
• Creates a broader safety networking resource
• The result safer roads
• for everyone

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Additional Resources ITS JPO Knowledge
Resources

• ITS Applications Overviewhttp//www.itsoverview.i
  ts.dot.gov

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ITS Benefits Database

• A curve speed warning system deployed along a
  rural interstate in California resulted in
  significant speed reductions at 3 of 5 test
  locations.

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ITS Costs Database
The cost for an illuminated crosswalk in Boulder,
Colorado ranged from 8,000 - 16,000.
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Deployment Statistics

• Three states report deployment of Curve Speed
  Warning Systems.

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ITS Lessons Learned

• Limit CMS message length to allow for adequate
  reading time at high speeds.

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Additional Resources

• NHI Course Catalog http//www.nhi.fhwa.dot.gov/tr
  aining/brows_catalog.aspx
• FHWA Office of Safety http//safety.fhwa.dot.gov/
  
• ITS Solution Center (to be launched Fall 2006).
  Find through http//www.its.dot.gov/
• AASHTO Safety Site http//safety.transportation.o
  rg/ (Includes info about implementing state
  strategic highway safety plans)
• Fatality Analysis Reporting System
• http//www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/
• FHWA Resource Center Safety and Design Team
  http//www.fhwa.dot.gov/resourcecenter/teams/safet
  y/index.cfm

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Contact Information Presenters

• Rob Maccubbin
• Lead Transportation Engineer, Mitretek Systems
• robert.maccubbin_at_mitretek.org [phone]
• Dr. Emily Parkany, P.E., PTOE
• Lead Transportation Engineer, Mitretek Systems
• emily.parkany_at_mitretek.org [phone]
• Mac Lister
• FHWA Resource Center
• mac.lister_at_fhwa.dot.gov 708-283-3532 

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Contact Information Technical

• Mo Oliver, FHWA Office of Safety
• morris.oliver_at_fhwa.dot.gov 202-366-2251 

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Contact Information Training

• Ben Gribbon, FHWA Office of Safety
• benjamin.gribbon_at_fhwa.dot.gov 202-366-1809
• Ron Giguere, ITS PCB Program Manager, ITS JPO
• ron.giguere_at_fhwa.dot.gov [phone]
• Bud Cribbs, NHI Training Program Manager
• bud.cribbs_at_fhwa.dot.gov [phone]

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Questions