This week the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published the final rule implementing National Performance Management Measures for highway safety. The previous federal transportation bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century Act (MAP-21), called for the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish national performance measures in a variety of areas. The Federal Transit Administration was required to set measures for state of good repair for transit assets. FHWA was to establish national measures for all public roads in the areas of safety, traffic congestion, and air emissions from vehicles, as well as measures applying only to the Interstate System and the remainder of the National Highway System for pavement condition, bridge condition, freight movement, and a more general system performance category. State departments of transportation (state DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are then required to set targets to be achieved for each measure, with the exception that DOTs do not set targets for transit asset condition. The rule implementing the safety measure is the first to be finalized.

The safety rule requires the following measures to be reported as five-year rolling averages: (1) the number of fatalities per year, (2) the number of serious injuries per year, (3) the rate of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per year, (4) the rate of serious injuries per 100 million VMT per year, and (5) the number of non-motorized fatalities and non-motorized serious injuries. Serious injuries are any incapacitating injury that prevents the injured person from walking, driving, or normally continuing the activities the person was capable of performing before the injury occurred. All public roads are to be included, regardless of jurisdiction.

State DOTs and MPOs must set annual targets for each safety measure, with state DOTs required to establish quantitative targets. For instance, if a state had 800 fatalities in the last year of its reporting period, then it might set a target of 760 for the year following, or a five-percent reduction. The actual targets are based on what the state believes it can achieve; the rule does not specify or provide guidance for how ambitious the targets are to be. Each year the FHWA is to evaluate whether states have met, or made significant progress toward meeting, their targets. FHWA will consider states to be in compliance if they have met their targets for two of their five measures and if the current value has improved from the baseline for another two measures. This cycle of setting targets and evaluating performance will recur annually, but with a significant time lag before the evaluation occurs.

By contrast, MPOs can choose either to set quantitative targets or commit to help implement the state's target by planning for and programming safety projects. State DOTs are to establish their targets by the time the annual Highway Safety Improvement Program report is due to FHWA at the end of August 2017. MPOs have until the end of February 2018 to first establish their targets, but are not required to wait until the state DOT develops its targets. After that, MPOs are to update their safety targets each year in a report to the state DOT. If states do not meet their targets, they will be required to use more of their federal funding for highway safety projects and submit a plan for how to meet the targets.  

Regional performance

The CMAP region is already making progress on the measures required in the safety rule. The five-year average number of fatalities shrank by almost one-quarter over the 2005-14 time period. Similarly, the five-year average number of serious injuries decreased by almost 30 percent. When examined as a rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT), similar patterns emerge: The five-year rolling averages show decreases of about one-quarter each for fatalities and serious injuries per 100 million VMT.

The overlap of the steepest reduction in serious injuries and fatal crashes with the recession (December 2007 to June 2009) suggests that economic conditions may have led to the decline in crashes by limiting certain types of travel. Crash rates have remained low as the economy has recovered, which may be attributable to road improvements, increased enforcement, and education to enhance safety.

Looking ahead

GO TO 2040 identifies public safety as a crucial goal. This includes developing a transportation system that reduces the risk of crashes. GO TO 2040 supports strategies by transportation agencies to reduce crashes through project design, enforcement, education, and other approaches. CMAP also works with partner agencies through CMAP's Advanced Technology Task Force and Regional Transportation Operations Coalition to identify, finance, and implement needed technology and highway operational improvements to reduce the number of crashes and respond to them quickly when they do occur. 

To implement targets at the regional level, the CMAP Board and MPO Policy Committee will have to determine whether to set quantitative targets or commit to planning for and programming safety projects to meet the state's goal. CMAP staff will be seeking feedback from agency stakeholders in the upcoming months on which is the right approach. Either approach could involve giving safety a larger role in local programming decisions. CMAP currently uses IDOT's identification of "5-percent locations" (locations that are the worst 5 percent on the highway network in terms of the frequency and severity of crashes) to help guide programming of highway projects. Most of the Councils of Mayors already use safety measures to help prioritize projects for the local Surface Transportation Program, but this may be an area where additional consideration of safety could help meet regional targets. ON TO 2050 should also take a deeper look at highway operations strategies that improve safety as well as consider safety benefits in the evaluation of transportation capital investments.