Roadway Safety Data Program

ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs 

ROADWAY SAFETY DATA AND ANALYSIS

CASE STUDY

FHWA-SA-17-015

Federal Highway Administration Office of Safety

Roadway Safety Data Program

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/rsdp/

December 5, 2016
ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs

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Notice 

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ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs

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TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION PAGE

1. Report No.

FHWA-SA-17-015

2. Government Accession 

No.

3. Recipient's Catalog No.

4. Title and Subtitle

Alabama’s Safety Planning Tools For MPOs: Roadway Safety Data And Analysis 

Case Study

5. Report Date

December 2016

6. Performing Organization Code

7.Author(s) 

Matthew Albee

8. Performing Organization Report No.

9. Performing Organization Name and Address

Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc (VHB)

8300 Boone Blvd., Suite 700

Vienna, VA 22182-2626 

10. Work Unit No.

11. Contract or Grant No.

DTFH61-10-D-00022

12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address

Federal Highway Administration Office of Safety 

1200 New Jersey Ave., SE

Washington, DC 20590

13. Type of Report and Period

Draft Report, Month Year – Month 

Year 

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

FHWA

15. Supplementary Notes

The contract manager for this report was Esther Strawder. 

16. Abstract

The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) led the effort to develop ALSAFE, a spreadsheet-based safety tool 

that can be used for short- and long-range transportation safety planning. ALDOT developed ALSAFE to serve as a safety 

planning tool for Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). The short-range planning process allows MPOs to develop 

benchmarks and performance measures, evaluate crash trends and patterns, and identify potential countermeasures for 

further evaluation. The long-range planning component of ALSAFE provides predictive equations to estimate changes in 

crash frequency or severity influenced by area-wide planning characteristics. 

17. Key Words: 

safety planning, crash data, long-range planning, 

short-range planning, MPOs

18. Distribution Statement

No restrictions.

19. Security Classif. (of this report)

Unclassified

20. Security Classif. (of this 

page) Unclassified

21. No. of Pages

 15

22. Price

Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-72) Reproduction of completed pages authorized
ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs

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ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................... 1

BACKGROUND............................................................................................................1

OBJECTIVE....................................................................................................................1

AUDIENCE....................................................................................................................1

DEVELOPMENT OF ALSAFE .................................................................... 2

APPLICATIONS OF THE SHORT-RANGE PLANNING PROCESS .... 2

DEVELOP BENCHMARKS AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES ...........................3

EVALUATE CRASH TRENDS ....................................................................................3

EVALUATE CRASH TYPES........................................................................................3

IDENTIFY AND IMPLEMENT COUNTERMEASURES...........................................3

APPLICATIONS OF THE LONG-RANGE PLANNING PROCESS ...... 4

RESULTS ....................................................................................................... 4

FUNDING ......................................................................................................................5

BENEFITS......................................................................................................................5

BARRIERS AND HOW THEY WERE OVERCOME.................................................5

LESSONS LEARNED....................................................................................................5

NEXT STEPS.................................................................................................................5

REFERENCES................................................................................................ 7

AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION .................................................... 7
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LIST OF FIGURES 

Figure 1. Sample output of the short range planning tool............................................4
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ACRONYMS

AADT Average Annual Daily Traffic

ALDOT Alabama Department of Transportation

CARE Critical Analysis Reporting Environment 

FAST Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act

GIS Geographic Information System

HPMS Highway Performance Monitoring System

HSIP Highway Safety Improvement Program

MAP-21 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act

MPO Metropolitan Planning Organization

NCHRP National Cooperative Highway Research Program

RPO Regional Planning Organization

SPF Safety Performance Function

TAZ Traffic Analysis Zone

VMT Vehicle-Miles Traveled
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) led the effort to develop ALSAFE, a 

spreadsheet-based safety tool that can be used for short- and long-range transportation safety 

planning. ALDOT developed ALSAFE to serve as a safety planning tool for Metropolitan 

Planning Organizations (MPOs). The short-range planning process allows MPOs to develop 

benchmarks and performance measures, evaluate crash trends and patterns, and identify 

potential countermeasures for further evaluation. The long-range planning component of 

ALSAFE provides predictive equations to estimate changes in crash frequency or severity 

influenced by area-wide planning characteristics. ALDOT is currently conducting Phase II of the 

ALSAFE project, where ALDOT will replicate the ALSAFE tool and process for three more 

MPOs.
ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs

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INTRODUCTION

The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) teamed with the University of Alabama 

in Huntsville and an engineering consulting firm (Cambridge Systematics) to develop ALSAFE, a 

spreadsheet-based safety tool that can be used for short- and long-range transportation safety 

planning. ALDOT developed ALSAFE to serve as a safety planning tool for Metropolitan 

Planning Organizations (MPOs). Using data from the Huntsville MPO, the project team 

compiled, organized, and analyzed the data to develop ALSAFE. Following testing, ALDOT 

made the tool available to all potential users in the state.

BACKGROUND 

Prior to ALSAFE, the State did not have a formal process to analyze safety in project planning. 

ALDOT wanted a process to make logical, data-driven decisions and incorporate safety into 

new projects. ALDOT first considered using the planning software PLANSAFE, which the 

National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) released in NCHRP CRP-CD-78 

PLANSAFE: Forecasting the Safety Impacts of Socio-Demographic Changes and Safety 

Countermeasures. After further examination, ALDOT decided that PLANSAFE did not fit the 

exact needs of the State; however, ALDOT still desired to create a tool modeled after the 

concept and functionality of PLANSAFE. 

OBJECTIVE 

As a short-range safety planning tool, MPOs can use ALSAFE to:

 Develop benchmarks.

 Evaluate crash trends and characteristics.

 Identify and evaluate focus crash types.

 Identify countermeasures.

As a long-range safety planning tool, MPOs can use a set of built-in equations to evaluate and 

understand the impacts of long-term demographic changes, land uses changes, and planning 

decisions on transportation safety. 

AUDIENCE 

This case study may be of interest to the following audiences:

 State Department of Transportation: Safety Engineering, Design, Planning, and 

Geographic Information System (GIS) units.
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 Local and Regional: City and County Public Works/Engineering/Transportation 

Departments, MPOs, and Regional Planning Commissions.

 Local Technical Assistance Programs.

 Consultants and private industries involved in safety.

 Universities and academia 

PROGRAM APPLICATION

DEVELOPMENT OF ALSAFE 

The project team chose the Huntsville MPO to conduct the first phase of the ALSAFE project. 

The Huntsville MPO had a comprehensive data set, which included crash data and roadway 

inventory data. The consultant used this data to develop a test version of the spreadsheet tool. 

The project team also integrated other data sets, such as land use, demographics, Vehicle-Miles

Traveled (VMT), and population density. ALDOT sponsored workshops attended by various 

MPO and Regional Planning Organization (RPO) planners throughout the State. The project 

team trained the planners on the basics of safety planning, (e.g., network screening). The 

MPO/RPO planners supported the tool and agreed that they would find the long-range planning 

tool useful in their jurisdictions.

The project team developed ALSAFE knowing that MPOs are often faced with challenges such 

as limited staff resources and the lack of personnel with a technical background in 

transportation safety or planning. ALSAFE is a tool that can provide advanced analyses using 

multiple data sets and provide output that is understandable and supports MPOs’ decision 

making.

MPOs can use the equations in the long-range safety planning process to evaluate the safety 

impacts of various future scenarios (e.g., land use changes, demographic shifts). The modelers 

developed Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) specific to Huntsville using negative binomial 

regression techniques and data from Huntsville. The models from the long-range planning 

process rely on data from the Critical Analysis Reporting Environment (CARE), the MPO travel 

demand model, signal inventory files, the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS), the 

U.S. Census TIGER/Line roadway network, and the American Community Survey.

APPLICATIONS OF THE SHORT-RANGE PLANNING PROCESS 

ALSAFE provides ALDOT and MPOs with two processes for integrating quantitative safety into 

transportation planning practices, which are a short-range and a long-range planning process. 

The short-range planning process allows MPOs to develop benchmarks and performance 
ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs

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measures, evaluate crash trends and patterns, characterize existing safety concerns at a regional 

and sub-regional level, and identify potential countermeasures for further evaluation.

Develop Benchmarks and Performance Measures 

With the use of ALSAFE, MPOs can compare their own regional safety performance with other 

MPOs in the State or elsewhere. The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP21) and the current legislation Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST Act) continues to 

require MPOs to report on five performance measures in order to receive federal funding.

ALSAFE includes the four safety performance measures required by MAP-21 and Phase II of the 

ALSAFE project will seek to incorporate the fifth performance measure required by the FAST 

Act (pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities and serious injuries). ALSAFE also allows the agencies to 

add their own measures as needed.

Evaluate Crash Trends 

ALSAFE analyzes various crash variables to identify trends or patterns that are occurring in a 

specified area, for specified sub-populations, and for roadway types. These variables include:

 Driver age and gender.

 Number of vehicles involved.

 Type of vehicles involved.

 Crash distribution by Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ), Urban/Rural classification, route type, 

or intersections.

 Time of day (e.g., year, month, day of week, hour).

 Behavioral and environmental factors.

Evaluate Crash Types 

ALSAFE also analyzes the crash data to identify trends for specific crash types:

 Crash type (e.g., rear-end, run-off-road, angle, sideswipe, head-on, pedestrian, bicycle).

 Geographic distribution of crash type.

 Evaluation of risk factors.

Identify and Investigate Countermeasures 

The decision to implement a specific countermeasure in a particular location or area requires 

consideration of existing conditions and crash trends. For locations experiencing a high 

frequency of crashes, the safety engineer may need to review crash narratives, traffic volumes, 
ALABAMA’S SAFETY PLANNING TOOLS FOR MPOs

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and turning movements. Although ALSAFE cannot select or recommend countermeasures, the 

program uses various national sources for engineering staff to investigate countermeasures in 

more detail. Staff can conduct “what if” analyses based on documented Crash Modification 

Factors (CMFs) from the CMF Clearinghouse.

APPLICATIONS OF THE LONG-RANGE PLANNING PROCESS 

The long-range planning component of ALSAFE provides predictive equations to estimate 

changes in crash frequency or severity influenced by area-wide planning characteristics such as 

changing demographics, land use changes, technological innovation, and mode shifts. The 

equations produce estimates of total crashes, fatal crashes, serious injury crashes, and property 

damage only crashes for future scenarios. These equations allow planners to proactively identify 

and prepare for such trends and to modify planning activities to possibly reduce future safety

problems. The analyst can apply ALDOT annual crash costs to estimate the financial 

implications of safety decision-making.

RESULTS 

Users of ALSAFE can produce tables, graphs, and maps identifying locations, crash patterns, and 

crash types. For example, Figure 1 shows the over-representation of severe crashes among 

selected crash types. In this case, single vehicle roadway departure crashes account for only 14 

percent of total crashes, but represent 29 percent of all severe crashes. This type of 

information can help the analyst prioritize improvement locations; in this case, for example, 

locations with a history roadway departure crashes or locations with similar risk factors as sites 

with high crash frequencies. 

Figure 1. Sample output of the short range planning tool.
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FUNDING 

ALDOT used the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) to fund the development and 

implementation of ALSAFE.

BENEFITS 

Alabama identified the following benefits for MPOs implementing ALSAFE in safety analyses: 

 Evaluate current system performance (how does an individual MPO compare to other 

MPOs within the state, or to the state as a whole?).

 Understand current crash trends with regard to the temporal component of crashes 

(hour, day, month, year), the number and types of users involved (single vehicle, multiple 

vehicle, motorcycles, etc.), and behavioral and environmental contributing factors 

(alcohol use, speeding, weather, etc.).

 Use GIS software to visualize crash data on a map of TAZs (e.g., from running a query 

on roadway departure crashes as a percent of all crashes, an analyst can see that rural 

areas have more roadway departure crashes).

 Identify potential countermeasures for implementation on a regional or sub-regional 

scale, based on the most prevalent crash type.

BARRIERS AND HOW THEY WERE OVERCOME 

The project team noted that it was a difficult task to gather, process, and clean the raw data 

from the Huntsville MPO to fit into ALSAFE. This time-consuming process is repeating with

other MPOs as Phase II of the ALSAFE project continues. Some efficiency will be gained in 

future years as the process is refined and data transfer and translation routines are worked out.

LESSONS LEARNED 

The creators of ALSAFE noted the importance of identifying the target users of a tool when in 

the development process. MPO personnel, some without technical expertise, would be using 

the tool, so the safety planning process should be easy to understand. The developers desired 

MPOs to follow along the safety planning process and therefore made a product with robust 

capabilities and easy to learn and use.

NEXT STEPS 

ALDOT is currently conducting Phase II of the ALSAFE project. ALDOT is replicating the 

ALSAFE tool and process for three more MPOs. The project team is interested to see how 

ALSAFE will transfer from the Huntsville MPO experience to these new data sets.
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ALDOT also noted that data is constantly improving. The University of Alabama in Huntsville is 

working on a methodology for accurately estimating Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT),

which will help improve the models for both short-range and long-range processes.

Lastly, ALDOT desires ALSAFE to be a web-based tool in future iterations, where MPOs can 

access data from any computer with internet access. It is currently a software application that is 

limited to individual computers.
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REFERENCES 

The following resources were consulted in development of this case study:

1. Tim Barnett (ALDOT), Beth Wemple (Cambridge Systematics), Alexander Maistros

(Cambridge Systematics). Telephone Interview. November 17, 2016.

2. Cambridge Systematics. ALSAFE: Quantitative Safety Planning Tools for Alabama MPOs, Progress 

Update. 2015.

AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION

Tim Barnett

State Safety Operations Engineer

Office of Safety Operations

Alabama Department of Transportation

1110 John Overton Drive

Montgomery, AL 36110

334.353.6460

barnettt@dot.state.al.us