Implementation Effort
- Requires minimal effort
- Timeline between 2-3 weeks*
* Assuming an agency has an existing, configured AASHTOWare Safety instance and all required data
Safety Processes
Our Customer Success team helps agencies turn crash data into actionable insights. The processes below show how they’re making their communities safer.
Creating District Safety Plans in Crash Query
The Texas Department of Transportation uses AASHTOWare Safety to help its districts create district safety plans.
Required Data
- Crash Data
Focus Areas
- NHTSA
- Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC)
- Intersection Analysis
- Manner of Collision
Process Overview
Each Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) district is required to submit a Safety Report and presentation every year, summarizing its findings from analyzing local crash data. These district safety plans are used to identify areas for future safety projects. To streamline this process, TxDOT partnered with AASHTOWare Safety to build a template in Crash Query that enables the districts to easily create consistent annual safety plans that address each district’s unique safety needs.
District managers across Texas can now use the Crash Query template to quickly identify crash patterns and key crash types in their areas. This information helps them create the District Safety Plans, which must be created annually and align with the state’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) emphasis areas.
“TxDOT’s primary objective is to lower the state’s traffic fatality rate and the total number of traffic fatalities and injuries. TxDOT seeks to accomplish this through improved designs, the continuous development of a safety culture within and outside of TxDOT, the expanded use of safety construction methods, the improvement of work zone safety, the advancement of an innovative behavioral Traffic Safety Program, and increased coordination with law enforcement. By incorporating safety planning into every aspect of construction and maintenance and working closely with a wide range of transportation safety stakeholders, TxDOT strives to protect the lives of those traveling our roadways and our hardworking employees and contractors.”
–TXDOT Safety and Travel Information
Before moving this process to Crash Query, there wasn’t a way to ensure that districts used the same data and methods to build these district safety plans. Now, the template ensures that each district uses the same data and metrics to build its safety plan.
In AASHTOWare Safety, users can simply create a copy of the District Safety Plan Template and start building their district safety plan. District managers can use the chart builder in the template to analyze different SHSP emphasis areas and identify potential areas of focus. The template makes it simple for district managers to pinpoint high-crash locations in their districts and monitor key crash types, such as pedestrian or bicyclist-related crashes.
All safety plans across the 25 districts are stored in Crash Query and can be shared among users. This ensures TxDOT and the districts can stay organized and ensure the data in each plan is as up-to-date as possible.
“Everybody starts on the same page. We have the same charts that are built for our SHSP emphasis areas and for the top contributing factors.”
–Jim Markham, Crash Data & Analysis Section Director (AASHTOWare Safety webinar)
More information on this topic can be found below: