Transportation

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Transportation Safety Data Requirements
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Transportation Reauthorization Legislation Signed
August 2005

• SAFETEA-LU moves a number of requirements to the
  States and Metropolitan Planning Organizations
• A majority of these programs are administered by
  FHWA, NHTSA, and FMCSA

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FHWA Federal Highway Administration

• Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP),
  National Highway System (NHS), Congestion
  Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ), and Surface
  Transportation Program (STP) HSIP funds
  (23USC148) may be used for planning, development
  and operation of a system for managing highway
  safety and for data improvements as they relate
  to the State Highway Safety Improvement Program.
  However, funds specifically reserved for
  Railway-Highway Crossing (23USC130) purposes may
  only be used as they directly relate to grade
  crossing safety activities. NHS, CMAQ, or STP
  funds may be used for safety data systems as they
  relate to the planning, development, and
  operation of a system for managing highway
  safety.
• State Planning and Research Funds (23USC505)
  In addition to carrying out the statewide
  transportation process, these funds may be used
  to develop and maintain safety-related data
  systems needed to conduct studies of the safety
  of the surface transportation system, as well as
  to develop and maintain a system for managing
  highway safety.

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NHTSA National Highway Safety Administration

• Highway Safety Programs (23USC402). Provides for
  coordinated national highway safety grant
  programs carried out by the States and local
  communities. Database improvements are eligible
  for funding.
• State Traffic Safety Information System
  Improvement Grants (23USC408)-Encourages States
  to adopt and implement effective programs to
  improve the timeliness, accuracy, completeness,
  uniformity, integration, and accessibility of
  State data that is needed to identify priorities
  for national, State, and local highway and
  traffic safety programs to evaluate the
  effectiveness of efforts to make such
  improvements to link these State data systems,
  including traffic records, with other data
  systems within the State and to improve the
  compatibility of the State data system with
  national data systems and data systems of other
  States to enhance the ability to observe and
  analyze national trends in crash occurrences,
  rates, outcomes, and circumstances. A State may
  use these grant funds only to implement such data
  improvement programs.

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FMCSA Federal Motor Carrier Administration

• Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP)--
  (49USC31104) States are authorized and
  encouraged to use a portion of their MCSAP funds
  for data collection and analysis as well as
  improvements to existing systems. A portion of
  MCSAP funds are available for High Priority
  Projects (Section 4107) that can include
  commercial motor vehicle safety data improvement
  initiatives. Periodically, reallocated funding
  becomes available, and it also may be spent on
  data improvements.
• Crash Data Improvement (CDI) Discretionary
  funds intended to support efforts in states to
  improve the collection and analysis of commercial
  motor vehicle crash data and maintain a high
  level of quality data reported to FMCSAs Motor
  Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS)
  crash file.
• Safety Data Improvement Program (SaDIP)
  (Section 4128) Discretionary grants to States
  for activities to improve the accuracy,
  timeliness and completeness of safety data
  including, but not limited to, large truck and
  bus crash data, roadside inspection, data
  enforcement data, driver citation data, and
  registration data. Funds can be used to purchase
  equipment, train law enforcement officers in
  collecting crash data, hire temporary staff to
  manage data quality improvement programs, revise
  outdated crash report forms, and code and enter
  crash data.

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Subtitle DHighway SafetySEC. 1401. HIGHWAY
SAFETY IMPROVEMENT PROGAM

• (6) STATE STRATEGIC HIGHWAY SAFETY PLAN.The
  term State strategic highway safety plan means
  a plan developed by the State transportation
  department that
• (A) is developed after consultation with
• (i) a highway safety representative of the
  Governor of the State
• (ii) regional transportation planning
  organizations and metropolitan planning
  organizations, if any
• (iii) representatives of major modes of
  transportation
• (iv) State and local traffic enforcement
  officials
• (v) persons responsible for administering
  section 130 at the State level
• (vi) representatives conducting Operation
  Lifesaver
• (vii) representatives conducting a motor
  carrier safety program under section 31102,
  31106, or 31309 of title 49
• (viii) motor vehicle administration agencies
  and
• (ix) other major State and local safety
  stakeholders
• (B) analyzes and makes effective use of State,
  regional, or local crash data
• (D) submits to the Secretary an annual report
  that
• (i) describes, in a clearly understandable
  fashion, not less than 5 percent of locations
  determined by the State, using criteria
  established in accordance with paragraph
  (2)(B)(ii), as exhibiting the most severe safety
  needs and
• (ii) contains an assessment of
• (I) potential remedies to hazardous locations
  identified
• (II) estimated costs associated with those
  remedies and

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SEC. 1401. HIGHWAY SAFETY IMPROVEMENT
PROGAMContinued

• (2) IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF HIGHWAY
  SAFETY PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES.As part of the
  State strategic highway safety plan, a State
  shall
• (A) have in place a crash data system with the
  ability to perform safety problem identification
  and countermeasure analysis
• (B) based on the analysis required by
  subparagraph (A)
• (i) identify hazardous locations, sections, and
  elements (including roadside obstacles,
  railway-highway crossing needs, and unmarked or
  poorly marked roads) that constitute a danger to
  motorists (including motorcyclists), bicyclists,
  pedestrians, and other highway users and
• (ii) using such criteria as the State
  determines to be appropriate, establish the
  relative severity of those locations, in terms of
  accidents, injuries, deaths, traffic volume
  levels, and other relevant data
• (C) adopt strategic and performance-based goals
  that
• (i) address traffic safety, including
  behavioral and infrastructure problems and
  opportunities on all public roads
• (ii) focus resources on areas of greatest need
  and
• (iii) are coordinated with other State highway
  safety programs
• (D) advance the capabilities of the State for
  traffic records data collection, analysis, and
  integration with other sources of safety data
  (such as road inventories) in a manner that
• (i) complements the State highway safety
  program under chapter 4 and the commercial
  vehicle safety plan under section 31102 of title
  49
• (ii) includes all public roads
• (iii) identifies hazardous locations, sections,
  and elements on public roads that constitute a
  danger to motorists (including motorcyclists),
  bicyclists, pedestrians, the disabled, and other
  highway users and
• (iv) includes a means of identifying the
  relative severity of hazardous locations
  described in clause (iii) in terms of accidents,
  injuries, deaths, and traffic volume levels
• (E)(i) determine priorities for the correction
  of hazardous road locations, sections, and
  elements (including railway-highway crossing
  improvements), as identified through crash data
  analysis
• (ii) identify opportunities for preventing the
  development of such hazardous conditions and
• (iii) establish and implement a schedule of
  highway safety improvement projects for hazard
  correction and hazard prevention and
• (F)(i) establish an evaluation process to
  analyze and assess results achieved by highway
  safety improvement projects carried out in
  accordance with procedures and criteria
  established by this section and (ii) use the
  information obtained under clause (i) in setting
  priorities for highway safety improvement
  projects.

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Highway Safety Improvement Program

• All Public Roads is the key to this section of
  the legislation
• Previously FHWA only oversaw issues relating to
  roads receiving Federal Funds
• It is likely that few State DOTs will use the
  same process to fulfill this requirement

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Highway Safety Improvement Program Continued

• FHWA has not yet determined how they can support
  this legislation.
• The legislation assumes data exist In many
  cases the data do not
• Where USDOT does not require data be collected it
  is unlikely that data are
• Where data are collected it is likely that it is
  not comparable between states or regions

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TRB Committee Sampled State DOTs

• Many States do not collect crash data because
• No Mandate
• No penalty
• Considered to be cost prohibitive
• Low threshold of interest
• Those with interest have little clout

Transportation Research Board Spatial Data and
Information Science Committee
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Transportation Information Needs Assessment (TINA)

• SAFETEA-LU includes a requirement for BTS to fund
  a data needs assessment to
• Identify data that is not being collected, but is
  needed to improve decision-making at all levels
  of government
• Recommend the appropriate organization to collect
  the data
• Determine priority for new data
• Identify data currently being collected that is
  no longer needed
• Develop cost estimate to implement these
  recommendations
• But BTS does not have the funding to perform this
  analysis funding cut approximately 12

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RITA / BTS / TINA / Geo

• BTS budget is 0.051 of the total safety bill
  asking all Operating Administrations to help
  fund TINA
• The Geo Program budget is 3.2 of the BTS budget
  of which
• 68 is Federal salary
• 27 contract support and
• 5 to product the NTAD CD-ROM product
• Support of the NSDI added in this legislation
  with no additional resources
• No longer funding to disseminate these
  transportation data sets through the web or share
  web mapping applications previously developed

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USDOT Capacity Limited

• Programs are functionally purposed little
  sharing, many stovepipes
• Small pockets of staff with some GIS experience
  in each Operating Administration
• Most agree there is a need for improved temporal
  and geographic data, but
• There are few true data champions
• Funding for construction, only a small percent
  for data

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State DOT GIS Activities

• ,

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State DOT GIS Activities

• 11th year that the GIS-T symposium has conducted
  a survey of GIS activities at state DOTS
• 48 states plus the district of Columbia and the
  commonwealth of Puerto Rico completing the survey
  
• Results to be presented next week at GIS for
  transportation symposium

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GIS Organizational Structure

• 49 DOTS maintain a GIS core unit which provides
  technical support
• 32 of the states report having an enterprise
  organizational structure with agency-wide data
  integration.
• Four states (AR, ID, ND SD) report that,
  although they have pockets of GIS applications,
  there is no agency-wide coordination of
  geospatial data or services.

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GIS Organizational Structure

• The average GIS core staff size for all
  responding agencies was 7.0, down from 7.4, as
  reported last year.
• GIS core units almost equally split between
  planning (47) and information services (49)
• Small increase in the percentage of GIS
  application development work that was outsourced
  (from 39 to 43).

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Road Centerline Key Activity

• A key component of most transportation GIS
  activities is the road centerline network
  database.
• All states that responded to this years survey
  reported that they maintain a digital road
  centerline database.
• 60 percent of the states report that their road
  centerline database includes all public roads,
  and another 22 percent include all state and
  county routes.

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Road Centerline Key Activity

• The majority of states (68) distribute their
  road centerline database free of charge to
  whoever wants it.
• Most other states (22) have policies that allow
  the data to be shared with other public agencies,
  but place restrictions on its use and/or
  redistribution.

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Geospatial Data Bases

• 72 also maintain some other geospatial
  databases.
• Over two thirds maintain other transportation
  networks or features, such as rail lines,
  airports, etc.
• Other framework geospatial data maintained by
  state dots include political and administrative
  boundaries (50), geodetic control points (36),
  and orthoimagery (32).
• Other databases include framework layers such as
  elevation (14), water features (22), or land
  parcels (10).

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Where State DOTs Get Their Data

• Primary sources of geospatial data used by state
  DOTs are other state and local agencies (92).
• State geospatial clearinghouses (66), and
  geo-spatial data maintained by federal agencies
  (58).
• Other sources include
• Data purchased from commercial data vendors
  (18),
• Data provided or purchased from GIS software
  vendors (22), and
• Data acquired through the Geospatial One-Stop
  (28).

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Improving CrashLocations in Ohio
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Ohio has the nations

• 9th largest highway network
• 5th largest volume of traffic
• 2nd largest bridge inventory
• 17 Metropolitan Planning Organizations

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On a typical day in Ohio in 2004

• 1,046 traffic crashes occurred
• 3.2 fatal traffic crashes occurred
• 3.5 persons died in a traffic-related crash
• 384 people were injured in a traffic crash,
  including 33 children through age 14.

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Total Crashes Statewide
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Crash Data Logging Issues Improvements

• Top Reasons for Unlocated Crashes
• No Location Reference Stated
• Unknown Reference Location
• House number
• Intersection with offset
• Driveway
• Milepost
• Boundary reference
• Ambiguous Reference Stated
• Multiple Possibilities (I-270 I-70)

New logging techniques to address these
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Crash Location Improvements

• Total Crash Records in 2005 358,127
• Before (36 located)
• Known Locations (all on state system) 129,490
• Unknown Locations 228,637
• After improved logging and better data (75
  located)
• Known Locations 270,237
• State system 139,038
• Local system 131,199
• Unknown Locations 87,890

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Improved Crash Locating Techniques
Located using traditional methods
Additional Crashes located using house number and
intersection improvements methods
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GIS-T 2006
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