2024 Excellence in Highway Safety Data

The Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award encourages

undergraduate and graduate students to use roadway data

to research a safety topic and prepare for a career in

highway safety.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is pleased to announce the Excellence in

Highway Safety Data Award, which is part of the Highway Data Analysis Excellence Awards

Program. The award is designed to encourage university students to use Highway Safety

Information System (HSIS) data to investigate a topic that advances highway safety and to 

develop a paper to document their original research.

Award Details

The Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award encourages university students and potential

future highway safety professional to use HSIS data. The goal is to introduce students to using 

high-quality safety data and appropriate research methods to derive recommendations, and the 

practice of using data to make decisions.

Eligibility and Guidelines

The Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award research paper competition is open to

undergraduate and graduate students in degree-granting programs thatsupport highway safety,

including, but not limited to, engineering, planning,statistics, psychology, and economics.

Current graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to develop papers for the

competition based on their use of HSIS data for class projects or for their graduate theses and

dissertation projects. Individuals who have graduated in the Spring, Summer, or Fall semester 

of 2023 are also eligible, if the paper is based on work conducted as part of the program.

The following requirements must be met by all applicants and submissions for the 2024 Award:

Eligibility—Applicant(s) must be enrolled as a graduate or undergraduate student in the 2023–

2024 academic year or have graduated from a university located in the United States during

the 2023–2024 academic year or have recently graduated in the Spring, Summer, or Fall 

semester of 2023.

Topic—In their submitted papers, applicants must use HSIS data, which includes data from the

States of California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Washington, and the 

city of Charlotte, NC, to investigate a topic that advances highway safety. Analysis must be 

conducted on data requested and acquired* from HSIS. While not mandatory, applicants are 

encouraged to consider integrating other data sources with HSIS data if applicable to their

research question, as long as HSIS data plays a central role in the analysis. Please see the 

website for more information and direct links to potential datasets that could be used in

combination with HSIS data.

Word count—The length of each paper must be 2,500–5,000 words, including the abstract,

text, references, and tables. Each table counts as 250 words. If 4 tables are submitted, the

abstract, text, and references may total no more than 4,000 words. Papers not meeting this

requirement may be rejected without review.

Original research—For authors who have submitted papers to, and received awards for,

previous competitions, HSIS expects that 2024 papers contain new, original material. If papers

build on previous work and/or previously requested HSIS datasets, the submitted papers

should offer significant, new information. All 2024 papers should contain at least 50 percent

 *Interested participants can initiate an HSIS data request from https://highways.dot.gov/research/safety/hsis.

An Analysis Tool for

Making Informed

Safety Decisions
new, original content, and the remaining 50 percent should not be verbatim to previously

published work and/or a manuscript previously submitted to the HSIS paper competition.

Individual or group work—Submissions by individual students or groups of students will

be considered. Teams, however, must define one lead student and contributing students for

the project (prizes reflect this requirement). Faculty can participate in an advisory role but 

cannot be coauthors on the paper.

Evaluation Criteria

Visit https://highways.dot.gov/research/safety/hsis/Excellence-Awards for complete

evaluation criteria details.

Award Prizes

Prize Details 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place

A cash prize will be awarded to each lead author of

a winning team (1st place: $1,000; 2nd place: $500;

3

rd place: $250 U.S.).

$1,000 $500 $250

Authors will be recognized at the ITE 2024 Annual

Meeting and Exhibition (July 21–July 24, 2024,

Philadelphia, PA). All authors will be acknowledged,

and each lead author of a winning team will receive

a plaque.

X X X

Registration for the 2024 ITE Annual Meeting and

Exhibition will be provided to the lead author of each

winning team only.

X X X

Lodging (2 nights) will be provided for the lead

authors of the 1st and 2nd place winning teams to

attend the 2024 ITE Annual Meeting and Exhibition.

X X

Roundtrip, domestic airfare will be provided for

the lead author of the 1st Place winning team to

attend the 2024 ITE Annual Meeting and Exhibition.

X

Publication of the 1st place winning paper will be

in the September 2024 ITE Journal and/or on the

HSIS website.

X

All prizes, including travel reimbursements, are subject to FHWA rules, regulations, and

approval at the time of the award.

Submission Details and Deadline

Visit https://highways.dot.gov/research/safety/hsis/Excellence-Awardsfor complete submission details.

— Papers due: May 1, 2024, 11:59 p.m. Eastern StandardTime—

*Note: The turnaround time for requested HSIS data, https://highways.dot.gov/research/ safety/hsis, is 

normally less than 2 weeks; however, the time needed to conduct an analysis of these data varies per project. 

Please be sure to plan accordingly and in advance of the paper submission deadline.

The HSIS is a safety database that contains crash, roadway inventory, and traffic volume data for a select group of agencies.

The participating States of California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, and Washington, and the city of

Charlotte, were selected based on the quality of their data, the range of data available, and their ability to merge the data

from various files. The HSIS database also contains historic data from Michigan and Utah. The HSIS database is used by

FHWA staff, contractors, university researchers, and others to study current highway safety issues, direct research efforts,

and evaluate the effectiveness of crash countermeasures.

Research,https://highways.dot.gov/research/safety/hsis

Development, and Technology

Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center6300 Georgetown PikeMcLean, VA 22101-2298

FHWA-HRT-24-075

HRSO-20/1-24(WEB)E

Recommended citation: 

Federal Highway 

Administration, 

2024 Excellence in 

Highway Safety Data

(Washington, DC: 2024)

https://doi.org/

10.21949/1521749