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Systemic Safety Screening in San Juan National Forest – A Practical Approach with Limited Crash Data

Date and Time: Monday, July 24: 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Location: Grand Ballroom A

 

Lead Presenter: Matt Hinshaw

Data-Driven Safety Analysis Program Manager, Federal Highway Administration Office of Safety

Speaker Biography

Matt Hinshaw is the Data-Driven Safety Analysis Program Manager for FHWA’s Office of Safety. He strives to identify and promote practical approaches to improve DDSA for all agencies. Matt began his career at Kansas DOT and joined FHWA to work in design and safety. He has a wide range of project development experience in geometric and roadside safety design, safety analysis, traffic engineering and project management. Matt has a Bachelors and Master's of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Kansas and is a registered Professional Engineer in Kansas.

Co-Authors 

Ian Hamilton, Transportation Planner, VHB; Scott Himes, Highway Safety Engineer, VHB; Jeff Gooch, Transportation Safety Engineer, VHB; Andi Bill, Associate Director, University of Wisconsin-Madison Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory

Presentation Description/Paper Summary

Federal Lands Highway (FLH), in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Safety, developed a forest road safety plan (FRSP) for the San Juan National Forest (SJNF) to assess policies, identify relevant risk factors, and recommend key countermeasures to reduce roadway departure (RwD) crashes in the Forest. However, crash data in the Forest is very limited; as a result, the project team needed a practical method for assessing risk on the Forest’s 2,498 miles of roadway to deploy effective low-cost countermeasures. The SJNF FRSP is a practical example for how several thousands of roadway miles can be screened with very limited data, particularly limited crash data. The combination of horizontal curvature, vertical grade, and exposure surrogates allowed the FLH project team to prioritize corridors in the Forest and develop countermeasure packages that can address safety at these locations.

Presentation File

Poster