FHWA Safety Program | Systemic Safety Project Selection Tool | Kentucky Case Study

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Applies Systemic Safety 

Project Selection Tool on Behalf of Local Agencies

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) applied the Systemic Safety Project Selection Tool (Tool)1 to a local road system.

Through the Federal Highway Administration Focus State Initiative, KYTC staff had previously conducted systemic planning

focused on roadway departure crashes on State highways. This planning effort, however, did not analyze or suggest any 

improvements for rural county roads. KYTC has a separate initiative that focuses on five or six counties each year (selected 

based on crash data) to assist the county agency staffs with reviewing corridors and identifying specific safety-related 

improvements. For their 2012 effort, KYTC used the Tool to analyze county roadway corridors on behalf of local agency staff 

in five counties—Boyle, Bourbon, Franklin, Mercer, and Montgomery.

Process and Results

Based on crash issues identified in previous statewide data 

analyses, KYTC chose roadway departure crashes on 

horizontal curves as the focus crash type. Rural county roads 

were chosen as the focus facility type in recognition of a 

commitment to increase the level of resources devoted to 

safety on local systems. There were a total of 92 segments 

along 217 miles of roadways in the five counties.

KYTC assembled crash data for the 2007-to-2011 timeframe 

and roadway attribute information from photo logs. KYTC 

referenced their Highway Pavement Management System 

(HPMS) database to identify appropriate roadway attributes. 

KYTC then assembled a list of potential risk factors from 

information presented in the American Association of State 

Highway and Transportation Officials’ Highway Safety 

Manual2. Five risk factors representing roadway attributes were selected from this initial list: horizontal curve density (number 

of curves per mile with a radius between 500 and 1,200 feet); lane width; shoulder type; shoulder width; and posted speed 

limit. Then, each risk factor was associated with a threshold value that was subjectively determined: horizontal curve density 

greater than the median density; lane width less than 10.5 feet; unpaved shoulders; shoulder width less than 6 feet; and posted 

speed limit greater than 30 miles per hour. For a given risk factor, a road segment received a score of “1” if it had attributes 

beyond the threshold value or a score of “0” otherwise.

The number of risk factors present was tallied for each segment. Results show that every segment but two (90 segments) had 

at least three risk factors present. Eighty-three of 90 segments had the same three risk factors (lane width, shoulder width, and 

speed limit). Therefore, the other two risk factors (curve density and shoulder type) were generally the determining factors for 

risk scores greater than three.

 

1 FHWA. 2013. Systemic Safety Project Selection Tool. U. S. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration. 

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/systemic/. 2 AASHTO. Highway Safety Manual. http://www.highwaysafetymanual.org/Pages/default.aspx. American Association of State Highway 

Transportation Officials. 2010.

Focus crash type: Roadway departure crashes on 

horizontal curves 

Focus facility type: Rural county roads 

Identified five risk factors:

 Horizontal curve density 

 Lane width 

 Shoulder type 

 Shoulder width 

 Speed limit 

Risk Assessment Results:

 100 percent of segments had at least risk factors

 45percent of segments had three risk factors

 47percent of segments had four risk factors

 7percent of segments had five risk factors
FHWA-SA-13-023

June 2013

As a check of the risk assessment results, KYTC compared the risk rating with the crash data to determine whether there was 

an association between the two. Table 1 shows that fatal, serious injury, and severe (fatal plus serious injury) crash rates 

(crashes per one million vehicle miles traveled) generally increase with the number of risk factors present for the segments 

analyzed with the Tool. The evaluation also suggests that the 15 miles of segments with all risk factors present had the highest 

crash rates.

Table 1. Kentucky Comparison of Risk Rating and Crash Rates for Roads with Annual Average Daily Traffic Less 

Than or Equal to 400 

Number of Risk 

Factors Present Roadway Miles

Sum of Vehicle 

Miles of Travel

Fatal

Crash Rate

Serious Injury

Crash Rate

Severe 

(fatal plus

serious injury)

Crash Rate

3 98 12,658,000 0.063 0.095 0.158

4 101 14,127,000 0.099 0.071 0.170

5 15 910,600 0.220 0.220 0.439

Benefits

The Tool proved beneficial for KYTC because it provided an easy-to-apply process to evaluate locally owned and operated 

roads. Applying the Tool did not require additional data gathering; all the data used in the analysis were based on available 

photo logs.

Contact

Tracy Lovell, P.E.

Transportation Engineer

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet

Tracy.Lovell@ky.gov