FHWA launches roadway safety hardware microsite

Washington, D.C. –The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) launched a microsite on the agency’s website to provide a central resource for information about guardrails and other roadside safety hardware.

The new site (https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/countermeasures/reduce_crash_severity/guardrail_ispe.cfm) is the latest in an ongoing effort to emphasize the importance of, and improve accessibility to, state guardrail data – including preliminary data from an In-Service Performance Evaluation (ISPE) pilot program.

“Safety is our top priority and enhanced data will improve road safety,” said Acting Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Butch Waidelich. “Our goal is to provide state DOTs with information they can use to make the right decisions for their states.”

Notably, the site will make it possible for state DOTs to share data about in-service performance of roadside hardware by hosting an ever-expanding collection of findings from the states in response to interest about performance guardrail terminals.

The site will highlight FHWA’s ISPE pilot – which began in 2015 and find will continue through 2019 – being conducted jointly with California, Massachusetts, Missouri and Pennsylvania to better ways to collect in-service performance data of roadside hardware. The site will also serve as the foundation of a publicly accessible database about guardrails used along America’s highways.

Waidelich said federal officials recognize the lack of state-based information on roadside hardware, and that the ISPE will improve roadway safety by making it easier for states to uniformly collect performance data on guardrails