SAFETY CONSCIOUS PLANNING: SUPPORTING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SAFE TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS

Safety-Conscious Planning (SCP) is a relatively new concept in the U.S. lexicon. U.S. safety planning initiatives have traditionally been reactive in nature. The tendency is to: 1) identify a problem primarily through analysis of crash data and 2) implement an appropriate enforcement, education, or engineering-oriented countermeasure. SCP, however, implies a proactive approach aimed at preventing crashes and unsafe conditions. Opinions of what the safety planning initiatives should address vary. The range of activities include: (1) Programming safety improvements to address roadway "hotspots"-or collision-prone locations; (2) Introducing multidisciplinary programs, that is, integrating engineering, enforcement and education activities; (3) Including road safety considerations as a key decision-making parameter in evaluating projects and programming expenditures; and (4) Establishing inherently safe transportation networks. SCP achieves road safety improvements through smaller quantum changes, but targeted at the whole network. Ultimately it can be defined as that stage where the following conditions are fully achieved: (1) All planning organizations routinely consider safety as an explicit planning priority in all plans and programs; (2) All planning organizations (public and private sector) have: (a) Some practitioners trained in state-of-the-art safety techniques, and (b) Access to state-of-the-art safety planning tools; and (3) Decision-makers are informed about the quantitative safety implications of all planning decisions, and they are reflected in decision-making. This Circular has two very distinct parts. Part I introduces safety conscious planning (SCP) and summarizes the SCP forums conducted by six states. Part II is a toolkit that provides the information needed by any state or local agency to organize and conduct a safety conscious planning forum.

• Record URL:
  http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/scp/ec041scp.htm
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00978515
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Herbel, S
• Publication Date: 2002-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; References; Tables;
• Pagination: v.p.
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Circular
  • Issue Number: E-C041
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0097-8515

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Decision making; Highway safety; Networks; Prevention; Safety programs; State of the art; Strategic planning; Traffic crashes; Traffic safety; Transportation planning
• Uncontrolled Terms: Safety conscious planning
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; Security and Emergencies; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00963107
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: E-C041
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Sep 8 2003 12:00AM