Implementation of Wyoming Rural Road Safety Program

Abstract

Recent transportation legislation contains language indicating that state departments of transportation (DOTs) will be required to address safety on local and rural roads. It is important for state, county, and city officials to cooperate in developing a comprehensive plan to improve roadway safety. This legislation provides an opportunity to implement a more cohesive and comprehensive approach to local road safety in Wyoming. The Wyoming Technology Transfer Center–Local Technical Assistance Program coordinated an effort in cooperation with the Wyoming DOT, the Wyoming Division of FHWA, as well as Wyoming counties and cities to identify low-cost safety improvements on high-risk rural roads in the state. In the past few years, low-cost safety projects were implemented in several Wyoming counties. These projects included pavement markings, advance warning signs, guardrails, and shoulder widening. The Wyoming DOT approved the Wyoming Rural Road Safety Program (WRRSP) and recommended statewide implementation in 2008. In addition, the Wyoming DOT and the FHWA division office approved the WRRSP for eligibility to receive funding from the High Risk Rural Road Program. Implementation of the WRRSP has resulted in better cooperation between local governments, the Wyoming DOT, and FHWA to address safety on rural roadways in Wyoming. Before the WRRSP was approved, no counties in Wyoming were applying for safety funding. Now more than half of the counties have received road safety improvement money. The WRRSP has developed a step-by-step procedure to receive funding and expertise in roadway safety. The Wind River Indian Reservation has implemented a similar program, which has led to the funding of low-cost safety improvements on the Indian reservation road network.

Exploring Crowdsourced Hard—Acceleration and Braking Event Data for Evaluating Safety Performance of Low-Volume Rural Highways in Iowa

“…An earlier study regarding crash risk site identification of rural roads mentioned several measures such as crash count, crash severity, crash rate, and crash quality control locations as indicators to identify high-risk crash sites. Ksaibati & Evans (2009) ranked the road segments in Wyoming using crash rate, crash per mile, fatal and injury crash mile, and equivalent property damage only (EPDO) [3].…”

“…However, some researchers have investigated the safety performance of LVRs by combining crash data with other surrogate safety measures. For example, Ksaibati & Evans (2009) introduced a combined ranking system for rural roads in Wyoming, where fifty percent of the weight was allocated to a road segment based on a field evaluation score. We propose a novel combined ranking scheme in the present study, where fifty percent of the weight is assigned to the HA/HB events based ranking score [3].…”

“…Crash report data is widely used to detect high-crash sites in low-volume rural areas. In addition, crash report data has also been used to prioritize safety improvement measures in many locations [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. However, the rarity of crashes on LVRs and irregularity in crash narratives make it intricate to use crash data to monitor LVR safety performance [8] [9] [10].…”

Identifying Candidate Locations for Safety Improvements on Low-Volume Rural Roads: The Oregon Experience

“…In discussing the implementation of Wyoming’s rural road safety program, Evans, et al ( 7 ) touched upon how high risk rural locations were identified. This identification process consisted of five steps:…”

Developing a Toolkit to Improve Transportation Safety on Indian Reservations

“…WYT 2 /LTAP developed the Wyoming Rural Road Safety Program (WRRSP), funded by the Mountain-Plains Consortium and Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) in cooperation with FHWA, to identify high-risk rural locations and develop a strategy to obtain funding to reduce crashes on the riskiest segments ( 9 ). As a derivative of the WRRSP, the WYT 2 /LTAP developed a safety toolkit for tribal communities to improve safety on their roadways.…”