Wildlife vehicle collisions (WVCs) have become an increasingly larger component of overall crashes nationally, while at the same time local populations of wildlife, both large and small, have suffered restrictions to their safe movement across roads. While there are several proven mitigation measures that significantly reduce WVCs, provide safe wildlife passage, and maintain habitat connectivity, there are many new technologies or improvements to old mitigation measures that may help reduce mitigation costs. For example, established infrastructure measures such as overpasses and underpasses with fencing can reduce large animal WVCs by over 85% on average; yet these projects can be costly and don’t always take into account the many crashes that involve smaller animal species, such as reptiles and amphibians. Thus, there is room for improvement and additional knowledge. The Wildlife Vehicle Collision Reduction and Habitat Connectivity pooled fund study will seek to identify cost-effective solutions that integrate highway safety and mobility with wildlife conservation and habitat connectivity. Therefore, evaluating new technologies and improvements to traditional measures, as well as corresponding costs. The results of this PFS are predicted to assist state and federal transportation, land management, and wildlife agencies in optimizing efforts to reduce WVCs. This PFS is proposed to be a collaborative research project through the Transportation Pooled Fund Program. This project will build upon the efforts of the public and private partnerships built between the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Western Transportation Institute – Montana State University (WTI), and ARC (Animal Road Crossings) Solutions, www.arc-solutions.org. Participating entities will identify and select nationally and regionally important mitigation measures and projects for evaluation.

1. Explore the effectiveness of new mitigation measures intended to increase driver awareness and decrease collisions with large mammals such as deer, elk, and moose. There are an estimated 1-2 million collisions with large mammals each year in the U.S., and the direct costs to society can be as high as $6-12 billion per year. There have been many developments in animal detection-driver warning systems. These are ideal at-grade solutions and are most often deployed on 2-lane rural highways. Other technologies that could be evaluated are on-board animal detection and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) systems. Another emerging technology is radar speed guns linked to variable message signs. There are many other emerging technologies that states and their partners may find of interest. 2. Evaluate improvements to traditional mitigation measures and quantify the effectiveness of those improvements in reducing WVCs. Signage and messaging, reflectors, noise makers, educational campaigns, citizen involvement, structural solutions such as under- and overpasses and associated fencing and escape ramps (a.k.a. jump-outs), and other mitigation measures that may have received modernization or improvements in recent years should be re-evaluated. For example, the Illumination of roadways has been a traditional measure to increase driver visibility, but has not necessarily been aimed at reducing WVCs. With new lighting techniques available, lighting systems may be evaluated for effectiveness at reducing WVCs. Similarly, new innovations in overpass technologies, such as the use of geosynthetically reinforced soil technologies and alternative fill materials like geofoam, may result in increased effectiveness because of improved sound attenuation. The Wildlife Vehicle Collision Reduction and Habitat Connectivity pooled fund study will select mitigation measures from this category to evaluate. 3. Assess the mitigation needs and measures for particular species of conservation interest. Often there is little known about species of conservation concern and their interaction with roads and when and how to create safe passage for these species. This project will select those species of conservation concern for which information is most urgently needed by transportation agencies and its partners, particularly for species of regional or national importance.

The scope is proposed to include the following items, and will be guided by the technical advisory committee: 1. Develop, select and provide support for priority research of new wildlife mitigation solutions. 2. Explore and encourage collaboration for research and implementation of wildlife mitigation measures by state DOTs, land management agencies, wildlife agencies and their partners. 3. Convene an annual meeting of the Pooled Fund’s Technical Advisory Committee and invited guests.

Schedule: The duration of the project is 5 years, to begin with the execution of a contract with a project management team. Funding: Participating state DOTs, land management, wildlife, and Canadian agencies or other partners will be expected to commit, at minimum, a level of funding that would cover their organization’s estimated share of project expenses. This would include travel for a project representative to an annual meeting, management of the various research and outreach efforts, and a proportional share of any development costs. These costs are estimated to be between $20,000 to 40,000 per year. For those organizations that would like to contribute to a lesser extent, or for a particular task during the duration of the project, they will not need to have a representative attend the annual meeting of the TAC to guide the pooled fund study or select tasks. A minimum of five (5) state DOTs or other partners contributing an average of $20,000 per year would provide sufficient base funding of $500,000 to support the proposed initial scope of work. Additional funding beyond the minimum from would enable additional projects to be executed.