Market Analysis of Collecting Fundamental Roadway Data Elements to Support the Highway Safety Improvement Program

Quality data are the foundation for making important decisions regarding the design, operation, and safety of roadways. Using roadway and traffic data together with crash data can help agencies to make decisions that are fiscally responsible and to improve the safety of the roadways for all users. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Safety has established a fundamental set of roadway and traffic data elements that States should be collecting to support the activities conducted under their Highway Safety Improvement Programs (FDE/HSIP). The objective of this effort was to conduct a market analysis of the potential cost to States in developing a statewide location referencing system and collecting the FDE/HSIP in all public roadways. This effort also investigated potential methodologies that could be applied to estimate the benefits in terms of safety of collecting this additional roadway information. This report provides the results of this effort and provides suggestions for future research.