Two Oregon State University Students Receive 2017 HSIS Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award

Awards program encourages students to prepare for a career in highway safety by using high quality data and prioritizing safety in research

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two Oregon State University students innovatively used Highway Safety Information System (HSIS) data to develop the paper that took the top prize in the 2017 HSIS Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award paper competition. Jason Anderson and co-author Shangjia Dong submitted the winning paper, “Heavy Vehicle Driver Injury Severity Analysis by Time of Week: A Mixed Logit Approach Using HSIS Crash Data,” and were recognized at the Joint Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)/Canadian ITE 2017 Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Toronto, Canada, on July 31.

The HSIS Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award, part of the Highway Data Analysis Excellence Awards Program, was created to introduce future highway safety professionals to HSIS safety data, to the application of appropriate research methods to derive recommendations, and to the practice of using data to make decisions. The competition is jointly administered by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and ITE.

 “This year’s winning paper focuses on heavy vehicle driver injuries and demonstrates an innovative use of HSIS data,” said Michael Trentacoste, FHWA’s Associate Administrator for Research, Development and Technology. “It exemplifies the goal of the awards program—to inspire university students to use HSIS data to investigate a topic that advances highway safety—and we hope these young researchers will continue exploring important transportation safety challenges.”

 Anderson and Dong’s paper is published in the September 2017 issue of ITE Journal, available online at www.ite.org/itejournal. As lead author, Anderson also received a commemorative plaque and travel and registration for the 2018 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting.

 “Freight plays a very important role and is sometimes overlooked when it comes to safety analyses,” said Anderson. “For this contest, I wanted to investigate large truck crashes by crash types that had not been studied before: crashes by time of week. There is a large difference in the proportion of crashes by time of week, and I thought the contributing factors would be different and potentially provide new insight into large truck crashes. This is exactly what I found.”

 The competition’s second-place recipients are Majbah Uddin and Fahim Ahmed, both from the University of South Carolina, for the paper “Analysis of Pedestrian Injury Severity in Motor Vehicle Crashes in Ohio.” The third-place recipient is Jin Wang, Auburn University, for the paper “Evaluating the Effects of Intersection Balance on Wrong-way Movements at Partial Cloverleaf Interchanges Terminals to Improve Highway Safety.”

 Details on the 2018 HSIS Excellence in Highway Safety Data Award are now available at www.hsisinfo.org/contest.cfm.

 About the Highway Safety Information System

HSIS is a safety database that contains crash, roadway inventory, and traffic volume data for a select group of States and cities. The participating agencies were selected based on the quality and quantity of data available, and their ability to merge data from various files. FHWA uses the HSIS to support the FHWA safety research program and provides input for program policy decisions. For more information, visit www.hsisinfo.org.

 About the Institute of Transportation Engineers

ITE is an international membership association of transportation professionals who work to improve mobility and safety for all transportation system users and help build smart and livable communities. Through its products and services, ITE promotes professional development and career advancement for its members, supports and encourages education, identifies necessary research, develops technical resources including standards and recommended practices, develops public awareness programs, and serves as a conduit for the exchange of professional information.

 

Founded in 1930, ITE is a community of transportation professionals including, transportation engineers, transportation planners, consultants, educators, technologists, and researchers. Learn more at www.ite.org.