Evaluation of the Overall Effectiveness of Highway Safety Improvement Projects at the National Level

This paper presents a model and evaluation of the effectiveness of safety improvement projects funded under the Hazard Elimination Program (HEP) and the Highway-Rail Grade Crossings Program (HRGCP) at the national level based on the crash, cost and traffic data of projects implemented from 1995 to 2000, which were obtained from the states. Major findings from the study include: (1) At the national level, projects implemented under the HEP showed a 28.6 percent reduction in the number of crashes, a 61.6 percent reduction in fatal crashes, and a 17.1 percent reduction in injury crashes; (2) Projects implemented under the HRGCP resulted in a 21.4 percent reduction in the number of crashes, a 100 percent reduction in fatal crashes, and a 31.3 percent reduction in injury crashes; (3) The benefit-cost ratio was 11.3 for projects implemented under the HEP, and 8.5 for projects implemented under the HRGCP; and (4) Of the various improvement types, the implementation of illumination projects showed the highest benefit-cost ratio.