VISION 2050 Federal Safety Performance Measure Targets
The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) enacted in 2012, created a national performance management framework that established uniform performance measures and target setting to, in part, create a consistent nationwide process for monitoring the effectiveness of Federal transportation investments, including investments in safety-related improvements implemented with Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding. As part of implementing the national performance management framework, States and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), like the Commission, are to annually establish targets for the five safety performance measures:
- Number of fatalities
- Rate of fatalities per one hundred million vehicle miles traveled (HMVMT)
- Number of serious injuries
- Rate of serious injuries per HMVMT
- Number of non-motorized (pedestrian/bicyclist) fatalities and serious injuries
Under the national performance management framework, the State is required to establish safety performance targets for the State and the Commission is required to establish safety performance targets for the Region’s metropolitan planning area (map). The targets are set for each of the five safety measures as a rolling five-year average ending in the year after the reporting year (2018), and are compared to a base rolling five-year average ending in the year previous to the reporting year (2016). While the Commission is required to establish safety targets and plan and program for achievement of those targets, there are no consequences should those targets not be met. In addition, the safety performance targets established for the Region are required to be incorporated into VISION 2050—the year 2050 regional land use and transportation plan completed in 2016.
Process to Establish Targets for Safety-Related Performance Measures
To establish the required short-term safety targets for the Region, Commission staff first used the following process to develop long-term (for the period 2046-2050) safety targets in the context of VISION 2050.
Table 1 shows the recommended years 2046-2050 regional targets for each of the five national safety performance measures incorporated into VISION 2050. Figures showing the declines of the regional years 2046-2050 targets over the 34-year timeframe (2017 through 2050) for each of the performance measures can be found here. Table 2 shows the resulting short-term years 2014-2018 safety targets for both the Region’s metropolitan planning area and the seven-county Region.
These targets represent the aspirational nature of, and quantify, the safety objective and safety recommendations of VISION 2050, but recognize the effect of past efforts to reduce the number and rate of fatalities and serious injuries. These safety targets, along with the process to establish the targets, were reviewed and endorsed by the Commission’s Advisory Committees on Regional Land Use Planning and Regional Transportation Planning at joint meeting held on January 18, 2018, and adopted by the Full Commission on June 20, 2018 as the first amendment to VISION 2050.
A more detailed discussion on the process used to establish the safety performance targets for the Region can be found in this document.
Reporting and Monitoring of Safety Targets
The safety targets will be reported and monitored in the transportation system performance section of the Commission’s Annual Report and on its website. The regional long-term targets will be reviewed and potentially updated every four years as part of the interim regional plan update and every 10 years as part of the major regional plan update.