Martin E Lipinski

PRACTICAL SAFETY TOOL FOR LOCAL LOW-VOLUME RURAL ROADS: THE ROAD SAFETY AUDIT REVIEW

Practical tools for improving transportation safety are needed worldwide. It has been estimated that motor vehicle–related crashes account for more than 1 million fatalities each year, and the number of serious injuries far exceeds fatalities. Local and low-volume roads are significantly overrepresented in crash statistics. Globally, the road safety audit (RSA) concept has been recognized as an effective tool in identifying and reducing the crash potential of roadways when used to analyze the safety aspects of project plans and designs before completion. In the local rural road arena, many safety issues are associated with existing roadway networks. Many of these networks have developed over time with little or no planning or design. There is a critical need for a practical tool that focuses on the safety of the existing as-built local road network. The RSA review (RSAR) process has been developed for this purpose, giving specific recognition to the functionality of the road being evaluated for safety issues. Significant numbers of safety improvements are needed, and practical approaches to address these needs are crucial. The RSAR tool has the potential to be particularly beneficial to local governments in systematically addressing safety deficiencies on existing rural road networks. In addition, it is a proactive safety tool that has the potential to protect agencies from tort liability since it establishes a record of the organization’s safety agenda. An RSAR methodology that can be adapted by local agencies is presented. A case study illustrating the application of this process is included. Also highlighted is a local rural training program that has been presented in several states for county applications. The focus is on U.S. county applications, but it is recognized that the process has utility for other agencies and has application in other countries. The necessity for training as a key component in the development of a sustainable safety program is emphasized.

Bicycle and Pedestrian Studies Based on Data from National Household Travel Survey

Communities around the nation are addressing new federal regulations and an increased pressure by national and local advocacy groups to accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians in transportation projects. To meet these demands, state and local transportation planning agencies must often rely on data sets derived from small samples and with little previous application to develop user characteristics and travel demand models that estimate the effect an increase in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure will have on the transportation network. One of the main sources for data on travel and transportation available to industry professionals is the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), which FHWA conducts every 5 to 7 years and which provides data sets on daily travel for all transportation modes, including information on driver characteristics, travel time, trip purpose, time of day, and day of the week a trip took place. An add-on program with NHTS offers agencies an opportunity to obtain local data that may be used for bicycle and pedestrian studies. This paper presents the results of a literature review on the current methodology NHTS uses to gather bicycle and pedestrian data, the application of the data by transportation planning agencies and researchers, and lessons learned in the use of those data for bicycle–pedestrian studies.

A Single-Objective Recovery Phase Model

The Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA has identified the four phases of disaster related planning as mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery. The recovery phase is characterized by activity to return life to normal or improved levels. Very little research considers the recovery phase, which encompasses restoring services and rebuilding disaster stricken areas of the highway transportation network. Existing recovery phase models deal primarily with travel times and do not focus on specific routes for reconstruction. This research proposes a plan for repair and restoration of bridges to restore a highway network that allows accessibility to key facilities in the area. This research differs from other recovery phase models in that actual routes are chosen for recovery based on given criteria. The single-objective optimization model developed in this paper is a flexible model that can be applied to a variety of natural disaster situations and other situations that involve damage to transportation components where decisions on recovery strategies must be made.