Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations (2025)
Chapter: Project Introduction
Project Introduction
Fostering a Safe System in the United States will prove a difficult, but worthy challenge. As many countries in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australasia have demonstrated, significant gains in traffic safety are possible (International Transport Forum, 2023). A central task of United States partners in traffic safety will be to convey the many benefits associated with creating a safe transportation system for all road users to the public and to policymakers, clearly explain the policies and interventions which can bring us closer to a truly Safe System, and make the changes required to realize increasingly fewer deaths and serious injuries on our roads seem desirable and doable (Michael et al., 2023).
This final report documents the efforts of National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 17-101, “Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations in the United States.” The sections of this report synthesize the results of research conducted to accomplish the six tasks of this project and summarize the content contained in interim deliverables, including the Literature Review Technical Memorandum produced at the completion of Task 1, the Practitioner Survey Technical Memorandum produced at the end of Task 2, the Interim Report produced under Task 3, The Technical Memorandum on a Focus Group Workshop produced for Task 4, and the Safe System Implementation Guidelines completed for Task 5.
The goals of NCHRP Project 17-101 are to:
- Identify, contextualize, and modularize policies and practices for implementing a Safe System approach in the United States.
- Share research products that will enable a range of professionals and organizations to adopt and implement a truly Safe System approach in their work.
This research project was conducted in two phases.
Phase I
- Task 1: Project management, literature review, and practitioner survey design
- Task 2: Conduct survey and develop outline of guidelines
Phase II
- Task 3: Interim report and meeting with the panel
- Task 4: Present outline of guidelines to practitioners
- Task 5: Prepare guidelines
- Task 6: Final report and deliverables
This final report is organized by the key points of all technical memoranda completed during tasks one (1) through five (5) and includes the following sections:
