Chapter 4: Recommendations and Implementation Strategies

The true success of an international scanning study is bringing ideas back to the United States and creating the change required to put better systems and technologies in place. AASHTO's Strategic Highway Safety Plan addresses six major areas (drivers, special users, vehicles, highways, emergency medical services, and management), and sets the stage for moving forward. Under the strategic area of management, the plan includes the following goals:

• Goal 21—Improving information and decision support systems

• Goal 22—Creating more effective processes and safety management systems

The scanning team believes that the goals are a start for getting better traffic safety information systems in the United States, but both goals need to be revised. For example, Goal 21 contains five recommended strategies developed several years ago that need to be revised in the context of current safety programs and the team's ideas for putting more effective systems in place. The scanning team also believes that the seven key themes in the categories of strategy, efficiency, and utility highlighted in Chapter Three should be considered by the States as they begin the challenging process of improving their traffic safety information systems.

The scanning team proposes to advance these themes in a four-step process through an umbrella strategic project with the long-range goal of developing a more comprehensive approach to Goal 21 of AASHTO's Strategic Highway Safety Plan:

1. Prepare a white paper that describes in greater detail the guiding principles and proposed implementation strategies behind each of the seven themes outlined in Chapter Three.

2. Conduct a focus group meeting to validate the white paper, develop additional details as necessary, and develop a framework for a National Safety Data Forum with appropriate sponsorship from various highway safety organizations.

3. Conduct National Safety Data Forum.

4. Prepare final implementation documents.

After the national forum, the scanning team will work with the sponsors to summarize final recommendations and update Goal 21, as well as to obtain AASHTO acceptance of the implementation strategies to carry the process to conclusion.

A number of other implementation strategies are being explored to support the umbrella strategic project. These strategies are outlined below:

• Conduct a scan within the United States to determine best practices for collecting, processing, storing, and sharing data.

• Develop a marketing plan for traffic safety information that will increase the awareness of the public and political entities of the importance of safety data.

• Enhance and simplify data collection by law enforcement officers by increasing the automation of data (through such methods as electronic collection and laptop computer use), as well as by ensuring that data collected are both necessary and cannot be obtained by means other than the officer in the field.

• Expand the use of existing technology to improve and expand databases and support electronic data collection of all types (such as crash, roadway features, traffic, imagery, driver, and medical data). Provide technologies and methodologies to reduce and share costs of developing and maintaining systems.

• Develop an implementation approach for the widespread application of safety analysis tools.

• Seek and evaluate new technologies to improve and expand the collection and management of data.

• Conduct a comprehensive review of safety-related data element needs (including the benefits and costs of each element collected and stored) and seek methods to remove redundancies and inefficiencies.

These implementation strategies, as well as supplemental implementation recommendations and strategies, are presented in more detail in a separate Scan Technology Implementation Plan document. The scanning team will share its findings and promote these recommendations to constituencies through distribution of this report, published articles, and presentations at meetings and conferences.