MAP-21

Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP)

* Calculated (sum of estimated individual State HSIP apportionments)

Program purpose

MAP-21 continues the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) to achieve a significant reduction in traffic fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads, including non-State-owned public roads and roads on tribal lands. The HSIP requires a data-driven, strategic approach to improving highway safety on all public roads that focuses on performance. 

Statutory citation(s): MAP-21 §1112; 23 USC 130 and 148

Funding features

Funded by contract authority from the Highway Account of the Highway Trust Fund. Funds are subject to the overall Federal-aid obligation limitation.

MAP-21 has a new approach to core formula program funding, authorizing a lump sum total instead of individual authorizations for each program. Once each State's share of the total is calculated, it is divided up by program within the State. (See "Apportionment" fact sheet).

Set-asides

From the State's HSIP apportionment, the following sums are to be set aside:

• Railway-highway crossings -- $220 million.
• A proportionate share of funds for the State's Transportation Alternatives (TA) program. (See "Apportionment" fact sheet for a description of this calculation)
• 2% for State Planning and Research (SPR). [§52005; 23 USC 505]

Federal share: Except as provided in 23 U.S.C. 120(c) and 130, the Federal share is 90%.

Eligible use of funding

A highway safety improvement project is any strategy, activity or project on a public road that is consistent with the data-driven State Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) and corrects or improves a hazardous road location or feature or addresses a highway safety problem. MAP-21 provides an example list of eligible activities, but HSIP projects are not limited to those on the list.

Workforce development, training, and education activities are also an eligible use of HSIP funds.

[§1109; 23 USC 504(e)]

Program features

The primary features of the current HSIP are retained, including the requirement for a comprehensive, data-driven, SHSP that defines State safety goals and describes a program of strategies to improve safety. To obligate HSIP funds, a State must develop, implement and update a SHSP, produce a program of projects or strategies to reduce identified safety problems, and evaluate the SHSP on a regular basis.

The SHSP remains a statewide coordinated plan developed in cooperation with a broad range of multidisciplinary stakeholders. 

States are required to have a safety data system to perform problem identification and countermeasure analysis on all public roads, adopt strategic and performance-based goals, advance data collection, analysis, and integration capabilities, determine priorities for the correction of identified safety problems, and establish evaluation procedures.

The Secretary is required to establish a subset of the model inventory of roadway elements (listing of roadway and traffic data elements critical to safety management, analysis, and decisionmaking), to be adopted and used by States to support these requirements.

Strategic Highway Safety Plan Updates

MAP-21 establishes a new requirement for regular SHSP updates.

• The Secretary is directed to establish requirements for plan updates by October 2013.
• States will submit updated plans to the Secretary, along with a description of the process used to update the plan.
• If a State fails to have an approved updated plan by August 1 of the first fiscal year after the requirements are established, that State will not be eligible to receive additional obligation limitation during the annual redistribution of unused obligation limitation (August redistribution). 

Special Rules

• High Risk Rural Road (HRRR) Safety – A HRRR is any rural major or minor collector or a rural local road with significant safety risks, as defined by a State in accordance with an updated SHSP. If the fatality rate on such roads increases over the most recent 2-year period for which data are available, in the next fiscal year the State must obligate for this purpose an amount at least equal to 200% of its FY 2009 HRRR set-aside.
• Older drivers – If fatalities and serious injuries per capita for drivers and pedestrians over age 65 increases during the most recent 2-year period for which data are available, a State is required to incorporate strategies focused on older drivers and pedestrians in the next SHSP update.

Reporting

States are required to report to the Secretary on progress made implementing highway safety improvements, effectiveness, and the extent to which fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads have been reduced, including a breakdown by functional classification and ownership to the maximum extent practicable. The Secretary will establish the content and schedule for such reports, which will be made available to the public on the DOT website.

Implementation

States will administer the HSIP, with appropriate oversight by the Office of Safety and the FHWA Division Office. The program also includes a clear linkage between behavioral State safety programs (NHTSA-funded §31102; 23 USC 402) and the SHSP.

Performance

Within 18 months of enactment, the Secretary, in consultation with States, MPOs, and other stakeholders, is directed to publish a rulemaking establishing measures for the States to use to assess serious injuries and fatalities per vehicle mile traveled and number of serious injuries and fatalities.

[§1203; 23 USC 150(c)]

States will establish targets for these measures within 1 year of the final rule on national performance measures. [§1203; 23 USC 150(d)]

If a State has not met or made significant progress toward meeting the targets within 2 years of their establishment, the State must use an amount of its formula obligation limitation equal to its prior year HSIP apportionment only for obligation of its HSIP funding, and submit an annual implementation plan on how the State will make progress to meet performance targets. [§1112; 23 USC 148(i)]