From Tech Transfer Newsletter, Spring 2009 » printer-friendly

How A Traffic Safety Evaluation Can Help Improve Your Roads

By Eduardo C. Serafin, PE, AICP and Alyssa Sherman, Technology Transfer Program

Is your city or county struggling to find the right solution to a recurring traffic safety problem, such as an intersection with a high number of crashes, a spot where drivers frequently speed, or a street where traffic doesn't circulate properly? If so, the Technology Transfer Program's free Traffic Safety Evaluation (TSE) Service can help.

At your request, two safety experts – one traffic engineer and one traffic enforcement expert – will visit your city for two days to evaluate traffic safety problems and recommend appropriate engineering and enforcement solutions. After their visit, our evaluators will present you with a complete report that describes the safety issues they examined, their observations on-site, engineering and enforcement recommendations to mitigate any safety problems identified, best practices and lessons learned from cities like yours, safety resources for further references, and potential funding sources to help implement recommended solutions.

This service is free for California cities and counties. Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Engineers and Police personnel from cities and counties where we have conducted evaluations have told us they find the evaluation service valuable because the evaluators bring wide experience and knowledge of best practices to the city. The evaluations provide technical assistance to support local agencies that do not have in-house traffic safety expertise. In many cases, our evaluators provide the credible third-party analysis that a jurisdiction needs to support grant proposals or plans submitted to their City Council. The following case studies explain the evaluation process and describe how five jurisdictions in California have improved traffic safety as a result of the free TSE service.

Improving an Unsafe Arterial

One Southern Californian city requested review of an arterial that had no sidewalks, narrow shoulders, isolated streetlights, high speed traffic, few traffic signals, and businesses on both sides of the road that attracted pedestrians to cross at uncontrolled intersections. Despite the city's efforts to improve safety on this arterial, there were more than 30 fatal collisions during a ten-year span and more than 450 total collisions in a five-year span.

During the visit to the city, the evaluators reviewed issues with city staff then spent time in the field gathering relevant information. After the visit, they prepared a comprehensive report for the city. The report included both short-term and long-term recommendations for traffic safety and operational improvements. The evaluators provided a list of cost-effective steps that the city could take to improve marked crosswalks in the short term. They also provided recommendations to address the need for additional signals and roadway design improvements as funding becomes available in the longer term.

The city found the TSE recommendations useful as a means to determine cost-effective solutions for them and is currently preparing a project scope for the improvements.

Bringing Enforcement and Engineering Closer Together

Another Southern California city requested a TSE to review 10 intersections and five roadway segments with the highest annual crash totals within the city and evaluate traffic circulation around schools. In response to this request, a traffic engineer evaluator and traffic enforcement specialist reviewed traffic records and related information from the city. The team then visited the city for two days, where they met with local officials, discussed the city's request, and performed field evaluations.

Based on the data and their field observations, the evaluators made many recommendations for improvements on streets and at intersections and provided references for further information. They also made several recommendations aimed at enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the city's enforcement programs. These include establishing traffic safety goals at high collision intersections and roadway segments, and encouraging shared use of safety data and information including pre-drawn intersection diagrams of major intersections.

After receiving the TSE report, city personnel told us that they especially appreciated that the enforcement and engineering recommendations were provided side-by-side in the report. In any city or county, it is beneficial for the two departments to coordinate so as to ensure safety on the streets, yet frequently there are significant gaps in how much one department understands or knows about the work of the other. The report in this case, among other things, emphasized coordination between the two departments.

Finding Cost-Effective Solutions for a Cash-Strapped City

A residential neighborhood in a large California city requested a TSE to address community concerns about traffic volumes, speed, and circulation on neighborhood roads. Like many California cities, this city has a limited budget and was concerned that some recommendations might not be feasible due to the associated costs.

Enforcement and engineering recommendations focused on low-cost improvements. Many of the evaluators' enforcement solutions involved adjustments to the existing enforcement priorities that the department could make to improve efficiency and efficacy of existing safety programs with little or no added cost. Most of the engineering solutions suggested re-striping, additional signage and other low cost improvements. In addition, evaluators provided information about potential funding sources in their report, including grants available from the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Even with suggestions for low cost solutions and potential funding resources, the city staff realized it may not be possible to implement all of the recommendations, so the city provided a citizen's group with a copy of the report and asked them to prioritize solutions and then encourage the City Council to fund the high priority solutions first. The city plans to implement the recommendations as soon as possible.

Comprehensive & Multi-Year Traffic Planning

A city in Southern California has been ranked by OTS's safety rankings of California cities as one of the highest frequencies of collisions among cities within its population group — a problem recognized by the city's police department (PD) and traffic engineering group. The city's PD, with participation from the city's public works department, requested a TSE be performed to help them identify ways to significantly improve traffic safety within the city.

The TSE report identified numerous enforcement areas that could be improved, including developing and monitoring traffic safety action plans, enhancing or streamlining police reporting of collisions, and more effective deployment of limited traffic unit staff. The TSE evaluators recommended that more strategic and tactical effort be focused on the DUI problem in the city. In addition, the PD is now working more closely with traffic management department staff to address some of the engineering issues identified in the TSE.

Currently, the city is using the TSE to develop a comprehensive, multi-year traffic plan to address many of the safety issues identified in the TSE, as well as the goals and objectives for traffic safety citywide. The PD is also planning to update its records management system to obtain detailed information essential to traffic goal setting and supervision. Moreover, the TSE is being used to obtain state-of-the-technology devices for red-light-running enforcement and to seek appropriate funding to better address traffic safety and operations in the city.

Traffic Safety Monitoring Over Time

A mid-sized Northern California city requested a TSE for their city twice in the last seven years, mindful that traffic patterns and safety issues can change dramatically over time in a fast-growing suburban environment. As part of the most recent evaluation, the TSE evaluators reviewed the traffic enforcement recommendations from the previous TSE report to determine how much progress had been achieved in the seven years since. From the new TSE, the recommendations to the city police department included record keeping (e.g., automated traffic collision database for collisions and citations) and traffic school training (e.g., Standardized Field Sobriety Test training for traffic officers).

In the new TSE, the city found the traffic engineering recommendations for city-wide application extremely helpful. The TSE evaluators identified multiple, specific recommendations for traffic signal operations, roadway signs and markings, marked crosswalks, analysis of crash data, use of a digital-images-based photolog system, technical training, and risk management.

To Request an Evaluation for Your City

City or county traffic engineering and police departments can request an evaluation for their city by emailing tse-info@techtransfer.berkeley.edu. Learn more about the Traffic Safety Evaluation (TSE) Service at www.techtransfer.berkeley.edu/tse.

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