A National Academies consensus study committee will examine the influence of safety research on the practice of road safety and the tools and resources used by practitioners. In particular, consideration will be given to how objective, evidence-based road safety research is produced and disseminated in a timely and consistent manner to inform the planning, design, and operations of road infrastructure. In doing so, the following questions will be considered along with others deemed appropriate by the committee:
• How are objective and evidence-based research findings produced?
• What can be done to streamline and hasten the process of ensuring that high-quality and objective safety research that has been conducted makes its way into standards development and guidance documents?
• How is the research validated and by whom?
• What are the main guides, tools, coursework, and other resources that transportation planners, highway designers, traffic engineers, and other highway professionals consult when making design and engineering choices that affect the safety performance of the road and traffic environment?
• To what extent are these practitioner resources informed and influenced by the results of evidence-based research and what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the results are incorporated in a timely, accurate, transparent, and systematic manner into these practitioner resources, while also ensuring that deficient research results are not used?
• Who are the key actors that can bring about any needed change in practice, and what are the processes for doing so?
• In cases where there are gaps in the availability of evidence-based research, are there effective mechanisms for ensuring that these gaps are filled by sponsoring the needed research?
• How can the dialogue between the research community and the practitioner community be improved to ensure that immediate safety research needs are met while also ensuring more strategic research is undertaken that elevates the state of the practice as a whole?
After assessing the research-to-practice process for road safety, the committee will explore equivalent processes from other fields and disciplines such as medicine, public health, and education, as well as other engineering-oriented fields such as commercial and residential building design and construction. Although not the primary focus of the study, the committee may want to examine the processes in place to ensure that evidence-based research is programmed and conducted to produce reliable and useable results for practitioners; for instance, by considering any significant changes to the research prioritization process in recent years. The committee will consider ways to improve the dialogue and engagement between the research and practitioner communities for achieving early progress in transitioning research results to practice. It will also consider ways to make longer-term and sustained improvements to the road safety research-to-practice process. Based on these assessments and the professional judgment of its members, the committee will recommend actions and strategies to improve the road safety research-to-practice process.