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Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations

 
REPORT
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Publication Number:  FHWA-HRT-14-081    Date:  November 2014
Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-14-081
Date: November 2014

 

Enhancing Statistical Methodologies For Highway Safety Research – Impetus From FHWA

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FOREWORD

The Federal Highway Administration’s ultimate goal for the Development of Crash Modification Factors (DCMF) program is to save lives by identifying new safety strategies that effectively reduce crashes and promoting them for nationwide installation by providing measures of their safety effectiveness. State transportation departments and other transportation agencies need to have objective measures for safety effectiveness before investing in new safety improvements strategies.

Statistical methodologies are heavily used for all studies performed under the DCMF, but these methodologies have been borrowed from other fields and, therefore, have limitations in capability and applicability when used for highway safety research. Accordingly, a secondary goal of the DCMF program is to advance highway safety and related research by establishing sound statistical methodologies, specifically for highway transportation, in cooperation with the American Statistical Association and other statistical communities. This white paper identifies and discusses opportunities for advancing methodologies to estimate crash modification factors (CMFs) and safety performance functions (SPFs) and outlines considerations and future steps that should be taken to encourage researchers to explore these techniques in their research to develop CMFs and SPFs.

Monique Evans
Director, Office of Safety
Research and Development

Notice

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in this document. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.

The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturers’ names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document.

Quality Assurance Statement

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provides high-quality information to serve Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes public understanding. Standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of its information. FHWA periodically reviews quality issues and adjusts its programs and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement.

 

Technical Report Documentation Page

1. Report No.

FHWA-HRT-14-081

2. Government Accession No.

3. Recipient’s Catalog No.

4. Title and Subtitle

Enhancing Statistical Methodologies for Highway Safety Research – Impetus from FHWA

5. Report Date

November 2014

6. Performing Organization Code

 

7. Author(s)

David Banks, Bhagwant Persaud, Craig Lyon, Kimberly Eccles, and Scott Himes

8. Performing Organization Report No.

9. Performing Organization Name and Address

VHB
4000 WestChase Boulevard, Suite 530
Raleigh, NC 27607

10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)

 

11. Contract or Grant No.

 

12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address

Office of Safety R&D
Federal Highway Administration
6300 Georgetown Pike
McLean, VA 22101-2296

13. Type of Report and Period Covered

 

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

 

15. Supplementary Notes

FHWA Contracting Officer Technical Manager: Roya Amjadi

16. Abstract

The Federal Highway Administration Development of Crash Modification Factors (DCMF) Program was established in 2012 to address highway safety research needs for evaluating new and innovative safety strategies (improvements) by developing reliable quantitative estimates of their effectiveness in reducing crashes. A goal of the DCMF is to advance highway safety and related research by establishing a sound foundation for the development of highway transportation specific statistical methodologies in cooperation with the American Statistical Association and other statistician communities. In pursuit of that goal, a two-day Technical Experts meeting brought together researchers from the road safety, statistics, and other statistics-related fields such as epidemiology, biostatistics, and agent based modeling that have methodologies relevant to highway safety research applications. The meeting resulted in guidance and materials that supported the development of this white paper, which identifies and discusses opportunities for advancing methodologies to estimate crash modification factors and safety performance functions. The paper outlines considerations and future steps to encourage researchers to explore these techniques in their research.

17. Key Words

Crash Modification Factors, Safety Performance Functions, Crash Analysis, Statistical Methodologies, Safety Evaluation

18. Distribution Statement

No restrictions. This document is available to the public through NTIS:
National Technical Information Service
Springfield, VA 22161
http://www.ntis.gov

19. Security Classif. (of this report)

Unclassified

20. Security Classif. (of this page)

Unclassified

21. No. of Pages

41

22. Price

 

Form DOT F 1700.7 Reproduction of completed page authorized

SI* (Modern Metric) Conversion Factors

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

 

 

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