Implementation of the Highway Safety Manual, Local Perspective

With the introduction of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM), safety has been given its own identity. The manual provides the opportunity for transportation professionals to quantify safety and truly measure how projects can be enhanced using safety countermeasures. The HSM provides a means to calculate the safety benefits of improvements to the roadway network. In a time where agencies are tightening their budgets and looking for the most “bang for their buck”, the ability to estimate the number of crashes a facility may experience and the potential reduction in crashes from a safety improvement is invaluable. This analysis along with a benefit-cost analysis provides a means to allocate funds according to a formula-based methodology. The South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization (SJTPO) successfully obtained federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding for safety improvements at a local intersection in southern New Jersey. This paper provides the local perspective on the HSM and how the methodologies within the manual were applied given financial, human resource, and data constraints.