Citation

Perkins DM, Datta TK, Umbs RM. Transp. Res. Rec. 1979; 709: 25-29.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1979, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The highway-safety engineer must constantly make crucial decisions involving the selection and implementation of safety-improvement countermeasures. To facilitate decisions regarding the continuation, addition to, or deletion of various types of highway-safety programs, valid effectiveness evaluations of completed safety projects should be conducted and made available to other engineers. Critical to the decision-making process are quantitative answers as to whether or not the project is accomplishing its intended purposes, how the purposes are being accomplished, and whether the project is producing unexpected or contrary results. Without the evaluation of individual projects, the effectiveness of highway-safety programs cannot be determined and limited safety funds cannot be allocated to those programs that are most effective in saving lives and reducing injuries and property damage. Too often, effectiveness-evaluation efforts are deemphasized because of monetary and staff constraints and the absence of a single, comprehensive procedure, designed specifically for the evaluation of deployed highway-safety countermeasures. In this study, the literature and current practices relative to effectiveness evaluations were examined to determine whether or not existing techniques and methods are appropriate for use in a single methodology for the evaluation of various roadway- or roadside- improvement projects. It was concluded that existing techniques are appropriate but that they should be organized into a structured procedure that would be practical for use by engineers and highway-safety personnel. This paper describes the procedure developed from state-of-the-art techniques for performing effectiveness evaluations of various types of completed highway-safety projects.