The Appalachian Transportation Institute (ATI), housed in the Marshall University Research Corporation, is the recipient of a $586,965 federal grant to improve crash report analysis in the state of West Virginia. ATI’s primary goal with the award is to develop partnerships with commercial motor vehicle (CMV) stakeholders in West Virginia to improve the accuracy and accessibility of CMV crash data so that more efficient enforcement activities and geometric improvements can be executed in priority locations.
According to ATI, some vehicle crash reports lack the requisite accuracy for performing hot spot analysis to identify problem areas along the state’s roadway network. This is often attributed to the crashes occurring in rural locations without a unique reference landmark, such as a business or intersection.
With the $586,965 grant, ATI will develop a tool to better locate crashes based on crash report information across all types of vehicles, as well as a dashboard for reporting and analyzing CMV crashes and safety hot spots to inform stakeholders that can target enforcement or roadway improvements.
Michael Vaughn is with the West Virginia Division of Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration.
“Accurate crash data is critical to identifying emerging CMV safety concerns and developing effective countermeasures to reduce the number of crashes and associated injuries and fatalities. This tool will provide analysts with new insights into CMV crashes to better target resources to improve highway safety.”
The WVDOT manages the statewide vehicle crash database on behalf of all state agencies and these new tools will benefit all entities utilizing the data.
“The value of this work is really twofold,” said Robert Plymale, chief operating officer for ATI. “The project sets out to improve the underlying data and systems available to stakeholders. But most importantly, this represents an indispensable partnership between ATI and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT), the Public Service Commission (PSC), and the West Virginia State Police. Through this collaboration, we aim to further reduce the number and severity of commercial motor vehicle crashes, particularly in the state’s many rural areas.”
For more information on the Appalachian Transportation Institute and their other projects throughout Appalachia, visit https://www.muati.org.
Original source can be found here.
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