Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Doug Bish Traffic

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Doug Bish Traffic Services Engineer Oregon Department of Transportation

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Diagnosing Crash Problems The problem is this person has a moose in his car, most problems are not so easily diagnosed!

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Diagnosing Crash Problems Steps to Diagnosing Safety Problems • Quantify crashes by type and severity • Determine if there is a problem: – abnormally high crashes in one or more areas; or – just high but normal patterns. • Determine possible source of problem (major causes). • Evaluate possible improvements for: – Potential crash reductions – Cost benefit of improvements.

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Diagnosing Crash Problems Diagnosis of a problem is not always self evident and requires expert knowledge: • • A “high” crash site does not always mean there is something abnormal or that there is cost effective fix. No baseline for determining if crashes are “high but normal patterns” or “there is abnormal patterns” Don’t always know best “treatment” for high crash location Hard to identify the best candidate mitigations for improving safety

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Step 1 – Review Data (looking for patterns) • Review and summarize data by: • Crash type (Rear-end, Sideswipe, Angle, Turning, Head-on, etc) • Crash severity (Fatal, Injury A, B, or C and PDO) • Direction of travel • Contributing circumstances (Lighting condition, road conditions, weather, impairment, etc)

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Crash Data • Can be obtained with a call to ODOT’s Crash Analysis and Reporting Unit (Robin shared with you some ways to obtain the data – it easier than you think)

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Scatter Plots

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Yearly Fatal and Injury Rates

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Crash Graphing Tool – day of the week, time of day, road condition (wet, dry), light condition (dark, light, dusk), alcohol impairment, crash type

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Crash Summary Database Something like this will be available with the new SPIS

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Collision Diagram Tools

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Investigating in the Field • Sometimes all the slicing and dicing of data doesn’t help • An important part of any investigation is to gather information from different perspectives

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Investigating in the Field • Visit the site, approach the area from all directions – If it is an intersection drive all legs of the intersection • Take along a peer with different expertise • Talk to staff maintaining the roadway (or meet them at the site) • Talk to public from around the area (neighbors or business) • Talk to enforcement and EMS

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Choosing a Solution • Once you have an idea of the problems you can begin to consider different fixes • Try to avoid choosing solutions until you have gathered all the facts! • Then compare different solutions by cost and benefit

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Crash Reduction Factors http: //www. oregon. gov/ODOT/HWY/TRAFFIC-ROADWAY/docs/excel/CRFWorksheet. xls Listed by Improvement Type ROADSIDE IMPROVEMENTS Rura l Urba n Fatal Non-Fatal PDO Barrier & Guardrail: Guardrail - install or improve X X 44 -47 42 -47 - Guardrail at bridge end - install or improve X X 90 20 -45 Median barrier - concrete, 3 -6' shy distance X X 90 10 -10 Median barrier - concrete, 7 -12' shy distance X X 85 5 -25 Median barrier - any X 60 -20 -40 Median barrier - metal X X 75 2 -28 Median barrier - cable X X 36 20 41 Install animal fencing X X 70 -90 61 impact attemuators X X 75 -90 50 5 -50 Clear Zone: Clear gore area X 50 50 25 Flatten side slopes from 1: 2 to 1: 4 X 7 7 7 Flatten side slopes from 1: 2 to 1: 6 X 15 15 15

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Benefit/Cost Worksheet http: //www. oregon. gov/ODOT/HWY/TRAFFIC-ROADWAY/docs/excel/BC_Form. xls

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Low Cost Countermeasures • Handouts – Low Cost Safety Solutions excel spreadsheet

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies National Publications • Low Cost http: //docs. mvrpc. org/safety/Low_Cost_Local_Roadway_ Safety_Solutions. pdf • Lane departure http: //www. t 2. unh. edu/nltapa/Pubs/PLD-1. pdf • NCHRP Safety Emphasis Guides http: //safety. transportation. org/guides. aspx • Highway Safety Manual (Available Spring of 2010)

Roadway Safety for Local Agencies Questions? Doug Bish Traffic Services Engineer Oregon Department of Transportation http: //www. oregon. gov/ODOT/HWY/TRAFFIC-ROADWAY/highway_safety. shtml