AAAFTS-CERS-CTRE  Collaboration
Demonstrating the traffic safety community’s commitment to continued progress, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety recently signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate with the Institute for Transportation (formerly known as the Center for Transportation Research and Education [CTRE]) and the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS) in an effort to continue the improvement of road safety using unique geographic and spatial systems, specifically in rural areas.

One goal for this collaboration is to work toward the development, facilitation and expansion of web-based technology so that rural transportation issues will be communicated to the public and particularly to rural areas. Another objective will be to further extend and enhance the usRAP program into rural areas as well as utilize the SafeRoadMaps created by CERS to communicate road safety issues to the public.

Beyond these initial goals, this collaboration calls for future research, development, and evaluation involving all three organizations. Examining different methods of calculating road safety, developing new evaluation metrics and utilizing various means of outreach for communication are all part of this project.  Public outreach, awareness and education efforts of will support the objectives of usRAP, CTRE, CERS and transportation safety in general as a major public health issue.

InTrans is an engineering oriented research organization that can help develop practical safety data analysis and visualization tools to aid transportations officials plan, design, and operate safer roadways. Alongside the Midwest Research Institute, InTrans (fomerly CTRE) has managed usRAP pilot programs in eight states, preparing risk maps summarizing crash statistics by location and star rating maps detailing the safety features of specific roadways.

CERS is an organization focus on providing citizen-centered research, training, and outreach to improve rural safety as well as provide online and seminar training to rural transportation practitioners and policymakers. One of the major initiatives of CERS is SafeRoadMaps, an interactive website displaying traffic fatalities throughout the U.S.  CERS is a product of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) which was passed by congress in July 2005.