IHSDM: EVALUATING THE SAFETY OF HIGHWAY GEOMETRIC DESIGNS

This article provides an overview of the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM), a suite of software analysis tools for evaluating safety and operational effects of highway geometric design decisions. Highway planners and designers can use IHSDM to check designs for conformance to design policy, to estimate expected safety performance, and to diagnose potential safety and operational issues throughout the project development process. The initial release of IHSDM by the Federal Highway Administration in late 2002 will provide evaluation capabilities for 2-lane rural highways. A subsequent release will add evaluation capabilities for multilane rural highways.