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Three-Tiered Programming - Utah

Original publication: SHSP Implementation Process Model, Supplement Number 1 – Case Studies; FHWA-SA-10-025; 2010 (PDF, 1MB)

Publication Year: 2010


Key Accomplishments

  • Enabled various types of safety programming to be addressed differently via a tiered approach.
  • Allowed safety stakeholders to take advantage of new opportunities.
  • Reduced the need to rewrite the SHSP because flexibility is written into the Plan.

Through the SHSP process States identify a full range of potential safety strategies. Implementation of each strategy ranges from relatively easy to very challenging. Likewise, the potential benefits of strategies vary significantly. Therefore, Utah has stratified its SHSP approach to focus on the strategies with the greatest expected benefits and manage the level of implementation effort.

The safety leadership team in Utah designed the SHSP using a three-tiered approach. The first tier represents emphasis areas with the most significant issues and addresses strategies with the greatest potential for reducing fatalities and injuries. These areas require a comprehensive approach and include roadway departure crashes; safety restraint use; impaired, aggressive, drowsy, and distracted driving; intersection safety; and young driver safety. Emphasis area leaders are assigned from the leadership team with the primary responsibility for the issue.

The second tier addresses programs or processes currently underway in Utah. The safety leadership team determined these programs must continue to be supported and enhanced. The safety areas in this category include pedestrian, child, work zone, motorcycle safety, railroad crossing, older drivers, bicycle safety, and truck safety.

The third tier represents opportunities to further reduce fatalities and injuries and recognizes these areas would take significant effort and resources to develop. Programs included in this tier address the crash data system, emergency services capabilities, and the safety management system (defined as not just planning, but actual physical connections among projects). Emerging issues, such as the role of the courts in traffic safety, also are addressed here. There is some fluidity in this tier, which provides the ability to take advantage of knowledgeable people and technology, manage new problems, and identify new opportunities as they come up. These strategies can be elevated to a higher tier without updating the entire SHSP.

Results

The SHSP’s three-tiered design focuses efforts on implementing the most feasible strategies having the largest potential safety benefits. It accommodates emerging issues and opportunities by providing the flexibility to move programs among the tiers without having to revise the plan.

Contact:
Robert Hull
Director, Traffic and Safety Division
Utah DOT
801-965-4273
rhull@utah.gov

Publication Year: 2010

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