Center for Safety Equity in Transportation
rural • isolated • tribal • indigenous
rural • isolated • tribal • indigenous
CSET Project #: 1708
Project Funding: CSET and UI
Start Date: September 2017
End Date: August 2020
Budget: $150,000
Ahmed Abdel-Rahim
Dr. Abdel-Rahim is a Professor in the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Idaho and the director of the University’s National Institute for Advanced Transportation Technology (NIATT). Dr. Abdel-Rahim research interest includes in highway safety and design, traffic flow operations and control, and transportation network modeling. Dr. Abdel-Rahim has been involved in a variety of safety related research projects funded but USDOT, FHWA, and state DOTs. He managed more than 56 research projects and published more than 95 peer reviewed publications.
This project documents the characteristics of traffic crashes in RITI communities in Idaho and establishes an in-depth understanding of the baseline traffic safety conditions in RITI communities. This is an important first step towards the ultimate goal of improving safety for these underserved groups through research, education, and outreach activities. The project has the following three objectives: 1) identify and document different sources of crash data for RITI communities in Idaho, 2) conduct an in-depth five-year crash analysis (2012-2016) to document the characteristics of traffic crashes in RITI communities using the Idaho Transportation Department’s (ITD) WebCars crash data tool, and 3) identify and document different sources for traffic exposure data (vehicle-miles-travelled) for RITI communities in Idaho
The project activities will help enhance the understanding of the impact factors that affect rural traffic crash frequencies and severities, and how these factors vary over time and across regions. The project outcome will also help identify crash causation factors and effective countermeasures to crashes involving RITI communities. Data generated through this project will allow CSET researchers to measure the center’s performance and its overall contribution to RITI transportation safety and help aid and guide the state’s efforts to improve safety on Idaho’s RITI roadway network through the identification of effective crash countermeasures that have the highest possible return on investment for these communities.