Northern Middlesex Council of Go

In August of 2005, The US Legislature passed the newest Transportation Act entitled the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Act - A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). This act provides guidance and funding for the implementation of a State Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP). As part of this program, all states are required to develop a Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP), of which a draft copy is available. THE SHSP's main purpose is to identify and analyze highway safety problems and provide projects aimed at improving safety at specific locations. SAFETEA-LU establishes a clear set of requirements for the SHSP that are addressed within that document. One of the requirements includes the:

"Identification of hazardous locations, sections, and elements and the establishment of criteria that indicate relative crash severity of these locations"

NMCOG staff have been working with MassHighway and various other organizations in the development of the Strategic Highway Safety Plan. As a result of these relationships, NMCOG is conducting a regional Traffic Safety Program for the nine member communities.

There are three main goals of the project. These include:

Identify Intersections with Safety Problems
Inform Local and State Officials and the Public of these Safety Problem Locations
Provide Technical Assistance in Determining the Cause of the Problem and Recommendations for Improvement.

NMCOG currently analyzes crash data provided by MassHighway and the RMV and produces a Top 100 Crash Location Report for the region. Updates to this report are provided as new data is collected and distributed. Using the EPDO method, high crash intersections are located and ranked based on number and severity of each crash. Once this report has been generated, NMCOG and eligible communites may use Highway Safety funds to implement improvements to the intersections being studied. In order to study these intersections, NMCOG works with the communities and MassHighway to conduct Road Safety Audits (RSA's). These RSA's consist of a small group of officials working together as a team to determine deficiencies in a study area and recommend low cost improvement strategies.

NMCOG uses the Equivalent Property Damage Only Method of ranking high crash locations throughout the region.

The Equivalent Property Damage Only (EPDO) Method takes into account total number of crashes at a location and the severity of each crash. This system is currently used by MassHighway in its development of the Top 200 Crash Locations in the State of Massachusetts.

The EPDO method is a system of ranking intersections in terms of safety. The system is point based with different types of crashes receiving different point values. The rankings are as follows:

1 point for a Property Damage Only Crash or Not Reported/Unknown Severity Crash
5 points for an Injury Crash
10 points for a Fatal Crash

The formula for determining the EPDO is as follows:

EPDO = (1 x Property Damage Only Crash) + (5 x Injury Crash) + (10 x Fatal Crash)

NMCOG, in conjunction with MassHighway and local and state officials, has taken part in the establishment of a Road Safety Audit Program.

Road Safety Audits performed to date include:

VFW Highway and Bridge Street Intersection in Lowell
Route 110 Corridor in Dracut
I-495 Corridor (regionwide)
US Route 3 Corridor (regionwide)