Roadway Human Factors and Behavioral Safety in Europe

FHWA-PL-05-005

The U.S. transportation community has placed high emphasis on the need to improve highway safety. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have adopted a goal to reduce highway fatalities from 1.5 per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled to 1.0 by 2008. AASHTO has established a Strategic Highway Safety Plan to determine the most promising countermeasures that improve safety in a cost-effective manner and are acceptable to the majority of the public. FHWA has focused its Safety Vital Few initiative on reducing intersection, run-off-the-road, and pedestrian fatalities. Human factors issues associated with roadway design and operations are a critical component of these highway safety improvement areas. It is also one of the five critical research needs contained in the highway infrastructure and operations component of the National Highway Research and Technology Partnership's report on highway safety. This study provides methodological and technical insights into how best to incorporate human factors issues in the research, design, and operation of highways.

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