A Guide to Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations (2025)
Chapter: Appendix B: Safe System Planning Practices
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"Appendix B: Safe System Planning Practices." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. A Guide to Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/29147.
APPENDIX B
Safe System Planning Practices
Appendix B provides data on how respondents appraised various Safe System planning practices. See Table B-1 for scores related to each practice’s feasibility and impact.
Interpretive categorization of Z-scores (Feasibility and Impact columns), with a mean of zero (0) and standard deviation of one (1).
| Categories | Z-scores |
|---|---|
| High | > 1 SD above mean |
| Moderate | < 1 and > 0 |
| Low | > −1 and < 0 |
| Very Low | < −1 SD below mean |
Note: SD = standard deviation round the mean score of zero (0).
Page
76
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Suggested Citation:
"Appendix B: Safe System Planning Practices." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. A Guide to Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/29147.
Table B-1. Planning practice feasibility and impact scores (n = 60).
| Practice | Feasibility | Impact | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| Incorporating road safety audits in project scoping/planning phases. | 0.724 | 0.302 | Moderate Feasibility/Moderate Impact |
| Prioritizing injury risk-based (systemic) safety assessments over crash “hot spot” or “black spot” approaches. | 0.225 | 0.417 | Moderate Feasibility/Moderate Impact |
| Communicating with communities previously not involved in decision-making to learn about their safety issues and concerns on a routine basis (annually, quarterly). | 0.402 | 0.225 | Moderate Feasibility/Moderate Impact |
| Coordinating with land-use planners to align land use and roadway purposes (e.g., deciding whether the road’s purpose is access- or mobility-centered). | 0.052 | 0.257 | Moderate Feasibility/Moderate Impact |
| Simulating the safety effects of land developments and investments in long-range plans. | −0.233 | −0.019 | Low Feasibility/Low Impact |
| Incorporating nontraditional transportation safety data sources [e.g., emergency medical services, hospital, social determinants of health, environmental, and historical (e.g., redlining)] as part of problem identification and project prioritization processes. | −0.307 | −0.012 | Low Feasibility/Low Impact |
| Implementing or expanding car-free zones in areas with high pedestrian activity. | −0.702 | 0.370 | Low Feasibility/Moderate Impact |
| Setting a goal to reduce road deaths by 50% by 2030 in safety plans. | 0.071 | −0.532 | Moderate Feasibility/Low Impact |
| Replacing travel forecasting (“predict and provide”) with backcasting (“decide and provide,” i.e., starting from a vision of desirable travel patterns and working backward to realize the vision). | −0.294 | −0.257 | Low Feasibility/Low Impact |
| Encouraging and facilitating public use of self-reporting (via mobile app or survey) to capture collisions and other events falling outside the scope of traditional crash reporting (e.g., near misses, pedestrian and bicyclist falls). | 0.062 | −0.751 | Moderate Feasibility/Low Impact |
Page
75
Share
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix B: Safe System Planning Practices." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. A Guide to Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/29147.
Page
76
Share
Suggested Citation:
"Appendix B: Safe System Planning Practices." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2025. A Guide to Applying the Safe System Approach to Transportation Planning, Design, and Operations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
doi: 10.17226/29147.
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