An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Federal Highway Safety Improvement Program

摘要

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act - A Legacy for Users(SAFETEA - LU) established the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), whichauthorized about $ 1.3 billion US dollars per year from 2006 to 2009 to be spent on highwaysafety projects. The HSIP aims "to achieve a significant reduction in fatalities and seriousinjuries on all public roads," and the number of national traffic fatalities seems to have decreasedat about the same time. This study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the HSIP on reducingfatal crashes in the United States. This study adopted fixed-effect panel models and multilevelmixed-effect models to deal with the random fluctuations before and after the introduction of theHSIP and state specific effects. The results show that national traffic fatalities, indeed, have beenreduced about 7.5 percent nationwide since the introduction of the HSIP compared to the 2001-2005 average, but the magnitude of the reduction varied by states. It was found that the states'safety-related spending did not increase after the introduction of HSIP. Increased safety fundingfrom the federal government was offset by a reduction in funding at the state level, referred to asa crowd-out effect. This study found that the magnitude of state fatal crash reduction was highlyassociated with the years of crash data available, prioritizing method, and utilization of roadwayinventory data. Moreover, states that prioritize hazardous sites using more detailed roadwayinventory data and the Empirical Bayes method have the most remarkable reduction, relyingheavily on the quality of crash data system. This study found that effectiveness of the HSIP onreducing national fatal crashes is very likely due to the mandated reporting requirements, whichhelped states allocated safety spending more effectively and efficiently. This study also suggeststhat with more consistent and reliable crash data, states will be able to employ more sophisticatedprioritization methods and make better highway safety investment decisions.