Low-Cost Safety Improvements Marketing Survey Results
June 1-2, 2006

1. AUDIENCE. As you think about the research results, who will benefit from their application? Some obvious candidates are:

State DOT (project development engineers, traffic/safety/design/maintenance/ operations engineers/leaders working on HSPI).

Chief of Safety Engineering/Operations, Program Development

State engineers, primarily

State DOT upper level management—Secretary and Division Directors

District safety teams (usually headed by operations), road engineers

Directors must convince upper management w/in organization (commissioner, chief engineers) that these efforts are worthwhile in order to obtain funding).

County: engineers, maintenance supervisors (information may need to be repackaged for them), Highway Superintendents

City/local engineers (municipal and traffic engineers, planning departments), (information may need to be repackaged for them), commissioners and council members

MPO/RPA (planners working on STIP Programming)

Governor's special staff is also helpful, if possible

Consultants: ITE, AASHTO, MPO, LTAP, TRB, NACE, League of Municipalities, Legislative (Lawmakers? Staff? Committees?), transportation conference

TRB committees: Safety Data Analysis, Evaluation; Safety Management; Highway Safety Manual Task Force

Academia: General, safety researchers

State NHTSA Coordinator

Consultant engineering firms

State Safety Management Division Chief

Implement at lowest level decision makers

LTAPs

Other stakeholders

What organizations influence the audiences' decisions about the validity of the strategies and advance their use? (AASHTO, ITE, ASCE, APWA, TRB, LTAP, others?)

Clearly, the primary influence on LCSI would come through AASHTO and TRB; especially at annual executive level and Chief Engineer level meetings

Is this limited only to engineering groups? For example, our state works with AARP on an older driver committee. Would we want to include groups affected by these strategies? i.e., pedestrians, older drivers, trucking?

State DOT safety engineers listserv: statehighwaysafetyengineers@iastate.edu

State Police—buy in and coordination important; Association of General Contractors—let them see what's coming up. Illinois Operations Laboratory at U of I (Prof. Ray Benekohol)

Maryland Traffic Engineers Council—meets quarterly

Scientifically, well done research/evaluation from FHWA/TRB/others

AASHTO, FHWA and NACE/APWA most influential within their communities

SD Municipal League

SD County Highway Superintendents Association (any others out there?)

(AASHTO, ITE, TRB were most cited)

2. MEDIA. Where might the audience(s) you identified learn about results and their application? What magazines, newsletters, other publications do they read to learn about the state-of-the practice, new products, innovative strategies and applications?

FHWA/State publications

"Best Practices" flyers to highlight proven treatments (different name?)

Our DOT publishes a quarterly newsletters, but not necessarily technical in nature. Articles can be sent in. (Please email me if your state has such a publication; include link, if electronic, and contact info.)

University "Tech Transfer" publication, which is sent throughout the State

Most States have a "League of Municipalities" monthly magazine, which likes to publish articles

Each KDOT District (6) has a newsletter

Penn publishes a newsletter from Bureau of Highway Safety and Traffic Engineering (electronic), which can be used to deploy this information

Various offices publish monthly or quarterly newsletters and the Agency produces monthly newsletter with best practices for selected area

Our Local Roads and Streets publishes a Technology Transfer newsletter

MD SHA publishes a newsletter that includes technical items

AAA FB as e-news and several websites where we could showcase results

Implementation guides, highway safety manual. Simple (?), only (?) to read reports

SD LTAP publishes technical newsletter and technical bulletins

SD Towns and Townships Association

SD DOT publishes a catch-all newsletter. It can have technical information inserted.

Trade/Other Publications (includes combined FHWA and other partner publications)

Safety List (San Diego State University)

AASHTO Journal—limited, by online or email is more widely used

Whatever comes my way that contains useful information

TRB publications/reports are not trade publications—they are research and outreach

IIHS safety statistics

Which websites might your audience visit to find technical information or news of new research results or technical applications? (AASHTO, ITE, APWA, TRB, FHWA websites)

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Hard copies or news articles much better than websites

FHWA websites (TFHRC)

Our office website hotlinks to any known site with meaningful info

State DOT website

ITE not too relevant; mostly highways, no peds

Safety engineers listserv

(FHWA, AASHTO, TRB cited most often)

3. PRESENTATIONS. What professional or industry events might your identified audience attend where workshops or presentations about low-cost strategies? (AASHTO annual and/or regional meetings; TRB, APWA/ITE/ other organization annual conferences or workshops.)

Not many opportunities for target to attend (travel) to annual meetings/workshops. However, bringing in the NHI course to our state would be more effective

Upper management—Commissioner or Chief Engineer is more like to attend mentioned events and bring back ideas and direction

Iowa sponsors one free safety engineering course

Most State DOTs sponsor an annual transportation conference

Minnesota Toward Zero Death (TZD) Conference

TRB

AASHTO

ITE Annual Meetings, specialty meetings, district meetings

TRB Annual Meeting; Traffic Records Forum

State spring and fall meetings of our Oklahoma Traffic Engineers Association where we could disseminate the information

Kansas Transportation Engineering Conference held every April

KS Association of County Engineers annual meeting

GHSA Annual Meeting

NACE Annual Meeting

NHTSA Regional Meetings

Lifesaver (Data and Research Track)

Pennsylvania Traffic Engineering and Safety Conference at State College (December; ~500 attendees)

Semiannual agency workshops

ATSSA very active in Illinois

UDOT Engineers Conference

Local Government Road School

State Highway Safety Conferences

SCHOTS(Z)?

SD County Highway Superintendents Association

State Traffic Engineers Quarterly Meeting

4. OPINION LEADERS. Who does your audience regard as credible in terms of the validity of new transportation concepts?

Evaluation of techniques with "proven" results, but data from similar climate applications are more favorable

Look to local guidance, i.e., the RPAs and Local/State Police

Own peers, for example, Chief of Police in town which has implemented the countermeasures has credibility with other police. Same with city administrators or Chamber of commerce

Good support data; other people have tried it and speak highly of it

Negatives or disadvantages have been fully addressed

AASHTO, ITE, TRB, FHWA

Have other states tried the concept; how well did it work; how long have you done this

NCHRP Report, TRB

FHWA, acceptance

NHTSA

Immediate supervisors and the old professionals in the discipline

Tom Welch hit it on the head—peers

Differs—State, local, law enforcement

Some traffic reporters (live traffic)

Traffic columnists (that answer motorists' inquiries/concerns)

AAA's members listen to AAA; many key stakeholders do as well

Mid-level management

State DOT Director

City engineers

City traffic engineers

Other Comments from Survey Form

As our USRAP Pilot grows, we hope to integrate the results of these evaluations into our protocols and toolkit of low-cost countermeasures we will "promote" at national, State, and local level. (submitted by Peter Kissinger, AAA-FTS)