This project will encompass safety-effectiveness evaluations of priority strategies from the NCHRP Report 500 Guidebooks, Guidance for Implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan. The safety effectiveness of many of the strategies in the guidebooks has not yet been rigorously evaluated. In order to achieve a national goal shared by the USDOT, AASHTO, and GHSA to reduce the fatality rate to 1.0 and save 9,000 lives annually by 2008, these "tried" and "experimental" strategies will need to be appropriately implemented. In this project, therefore, data will be collected and before-after safety effectiveness evaluations will be performed at sites where selected safety strategies are being implemented. A steering committee, comprised of pooled fund State DOT representatives, will provide guidance on the strategies selected for evaluation.

The goal of the proposed research is to develop reliable estimates of the safety effectiveness of safety improvements identified as strategies in the NCHRP Report 500 Guidebooks through scientifically rigorous before-after evaluations of sites within the U.S. where these strategies are being implemented.

The scope of the Low Cost Safety Improvements Pooled Funds Study is to conduct a research project of priority strategies from all of the NCHRP Report 500 Guidebooks. A target of 24 strategies totaling $6M over three years is planned, but this will vary depending on the level of support. The data for the study will be gathered from those states that implement the strategies throughout the US. The methodology utilized will typically be an Empirical Bayes evaluation, using before-after data (where the safety improvements are made, as well as untreated base locations), to help determine their effectiveness in reducing the number and severity of crashes. The data will be collected, and evaluation studies performed, as the strategies are implemented over the course of a few years. The greater the number of States implementing the strategies, the faster the rate of after data collection will be collected. This will in turn shorten the total time for each evaluation. The implementation of the strategies and the evaluations will be staggered; grouping a small number of the evaluations together, as appropriate.

This project is open to any number of participating states, independent of involvement with the lead state initiative supporting implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan. The minimum target amount of funding requested by the participating states should be $30,000-50,000 per year for three years, totaling (for all states pooled funds) $3M over 3 years. States wishing to be involved in more than one improvement area (e.g. lane departure, aggressive driving, etc.) are asked to consider increasing their contributions accordingly. FHWA will contribute $1.5M total, and additional funds will be solicited from other sources.