Session 2A: Systemic Safety
Session Description: Highway agencies implement roadway safety management procedures to identify locations and implement projects with the goal of reducing fatalities and serious injuries. In general, there are two approaches to programming safety improvement projects: crash-based and systemic. Highway agencies traditionally have used the crash-based approach to select and treat sites based on site-specific crash frequency and severity. While the crash-based approach can identify locations in need of improvement, safety investments are often targeted toward urban locations with multiple crashes in a short period, possibly due to random chance alone. The crash-based approach is also reactive in nature, as individual sites are not identified for potential safety improvement until they have a documented crash history. To complement the crash-based approach to safety management, highway agencies have recently been incorporating a systemic approach to safety. With the systemic approach, agencies focus on selecting and treating sites based on site-specific geometric and operational attributes known to increase crash potential. The systemic approach to safety is proactive in nature, as sites can be prioritized for safety improvements even if they do not have a history of crashes. In this session, several ongoing and recently completed projects at the federal level will be presented to help state and local agencies implement systemic safety as part of their roadway safety management procedures.
Moderator: Darren Torbic, MRIGlobal
- FHWA Programs Supporting Systemic Safety, David Petrucci, Jr., PE, PTOE, Safety and Design Technical Service Team, United States Department of Transportation(USDOT) –Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) – Resource Center
- Reliability of Safety Management Methods: Systemic Safety Programs, Tim Harmon, Highway Safety Project Manager, VHB
- Identification of Crash Types, Risk Factors, and Countermeasures to Implement Systemic Safety, Raghavan Srinivasan, Senior Transportation Research Engineer, University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center
Speaker Bios:
David Petrucci is a safety engineer with the USDOT Federal Highway Administration’s Resource Center, stationed out of the Baltimore, MD regional office. Mr. Petrucci has 16 years of traffic engineering experience in consulting and government while specializing in transportation operations and design, safety studies, traffic analysis, and simulation modeling. He is a member of the FHWA Intersection, Pedestrian, and Bicycle Safety teams, and provides technical assistance to state, local, and tribal governments throughout the United States and its territories. Mr. Petrucci is an active member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and serves as vice chairperson of the ITE Transportation Safety Council. Mr. Petrucci is an NHI certified instructor, licensed professional engineer, and certified professional traffic operations engineer.
Tim Harmon is a highway safety project manager with VHB. Tim’s work focuses on cutting-edge research in safety management, implementing safety analysis software tools such as AASHTOWare Safety Analyst and IHSDM, and institutionalizing data-driven safety analysis at transportation agencies. Prior to joining VHB, Tim was the assistant highway safety engineer at New Hampshire Department of Transportation, where he managed the Department’s safety data and supported the state’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan and Highway Safety Improvement Program. He graduated with a bachelor of science in civil engineering from the University of New Hampshire.
Dr. Raghavan Srinivasan is a senior transportation research engineer and associate director of engineering and data sciences at UNC’s Highway Safety Research Center. He has more than 20 years of experience in conducting research in highway safety. Raghavan has conducted projects for several federal agencies including NCHRP, FHWA, and NHTSA, and state agencies including Virginia, California, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina. Raghavan is currently the PI for an AASHTO/FHWA/NCDOT project that is evaluating driving performance associated with horizontal and vertical alignment, using data from the SHRP2 naturalistic driving study (NDS). Raghavan is also the PI for NCHRP Project 17-72, which will develop the crash modification factors (CMFs) for the 2nd edition of the HSM. He has served as the lead analyst for many before-after evaluations for FHWA and other agencies. Raghavan has a Ph.D. in transportation from the University of California, Davis, and a masters in transportation from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Raghavan is a recipient of TRB’s 2008 D. Grant Mickle Award. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Safety Research.
