Development of safety performance functions for high speed roadways in Saskatchewan

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The five most recent years' collision data from Saskatchewan (2006-10) show that collisions per 100,000 population have increased by 14%. In 2010 alone, 167 fatalities, 6,518 injuries and 23,910 property damage only (PDO) collisions were reported to Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI), the road safety authority in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan has the highest number of fatalities per 100,000 population and is the leading province in terms of the fatalities per billion vehicle kilometres in Canada. To reduce the number of severe collisions on high speed roadways (basic sections of expressways and freeways, merge/diverge sections, and ramp roadways at/nearby interchanges) in particular, the safety network screening process outlined in the US Highway Safety Manual (HSM) is being applied. The process involves the creation of Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) which can be used to predict the number of future collisions at various configurations of high speed roadways. SGI would like to use the SPFs to proactively and scientifically identify high speed roadway locations where safety improvements can be introduced to reduce the number of preventable collisions. Note that the current HSM has no base SPFs that can be readily applied for high speed roadways. Furthermore, there is little guarantee that high speed roadway SPFs being prepared for a future HSM will accurately model the level of safety in Saskatchewan. This is because the HSM's base SPFs are being developed using collision and traffic volume data from American jurisdictions where the roadway environment, weather conditions, and driver behavior are very different than those of Saskatchewan. The objectives of the proposed research include, but are not limited to: i) Develop a series of SPFs for high speed roadways by each roadway configuration and collision severity; ii) Compare the performance of the SPFs developed using Saskatchewan collision and traffic volume data to the performance of the forthcoming HSM's base SPFs; and iii) Develop a set of GIS based collision maps that can visually display the high speed roadway locations identified as having the potential for safety improvements.