Background Report: Guidance for Roadway Safety Data to Support the Highway Safety Improvement Program

Quality data are the foundation for making important decisions regarding the design, operation, and safety of roadways. The Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) provides information on how safety data should be used. However, there are no details on specific data elements that State agencies should be collecting, maintaining, and using to support their HSIP and Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSPs). In 2011, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Safety released a guidance memorandum on the fundamental roadway and traffic data elements that States should be collecting and incorporating into their safety analyses to support their HSIP (known as the FDE/HSIP) and on what roadways they should be collected. The purpose of this report is to provide background information on why and how the guidance was developed, estimates of the costs of data collection, safety analysis tools and methods, and performance measures that should be implemented to achieve quality safety data.