Energy and Transportation | Research and Development
Traffic Safety
Our goal is to reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries that occur on the nation’s highways.
MRIGlobal experts evaluate the impact of specific highway designs and safety treatments on crash frequency and severity. Our research helps highway agencies estimate the costs and benefits of including specific design features in their highway projects. We point transportation professionals toward best practices in designing for the safety of all travel modes (cars, trucks, motorcycles, pedestrians, bicycles).
Capabilities
Our traffic and highway safety R&D capabilities include:
MRIGlobal statisticians are an integral part of our Transportation Research Center, conducting before-after evaluations of safety treatments to determine their effectiveness in reducing crash frequency and severity.
MRIGlobal evaluates the impact of specific roadway geometric design elements on crash frequency and severity. We also provide guidance to highway agencies in selecting the most appropriate geometric design for a given situation or context.
We work with transportation agencies to analyze location crash data, identify focus crash types and contributing circumstances, and recommend cost-effective treatments. We tailor unique safety plans for transportation agencies in a user-friendly format for engineers, planners, safety advocates, and decision-makers.
MRIGlobal evaluates the safety effectiveness of roadway treatments and the cost of those treatments for various application scenarios. We provide highway agencies guidance on how to get the most safety benefit for their dollars by estimating installation, maintenance costs of the treatment, as well as the expected number of lives saved and injuries prevented.
Our transportation research focuses on accommodating all roadway users. We develop methodologies to predict pedestrian and bicycle crashes at urban and suburban signalized intersections. We also assess the impact of geometric design on pedestrian and bicycle safety and develop the design guidance and strategies to reduce pedestrian and bicycle crashes.
Safety Research Expertise
MRIGlobal has an array of experience. We have conducted safety analyses of:
- Intersection left- and right-turn lanes
- Rumble strips
- Supplementary pavement markings
- Striping and delineation improvements
- Lane and shoulder widths
- Pedestrian crossing treatments
- Horizontal and vertical alignment combinations for rural two-lane highways
- Safety Edge treatment used in conjunction with pavement resurfacing
- Indirect left-turn treatments involving unsignalized median openings
- Relationship between driving speed and safety
- Use of Naturalistic Driving Study data for evaluation of safety impact of roadway features
Our Staff
MRIGlobal staff assess the impacts of specific roadway treatments on crash frequency and severity and translate research results into national policies and guidance to help highway agencies implement the results of our findings.
For more than 45 years, we’ve conducted safety studies for the Federal Highway Administration, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, state and local departments of transportation, and other highway safety organizations. Our research develops crash prediction models for two-lane rural highways and urban and suburban arterials as included in the first edition of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM). Currently we are developing crash prediction methodologies for additional intersection configurations and for pedestrian and bike facilities to be included in future editions of the HSM.
Work with us
MRIGlobal looks forward to contributing our expertise where it matters most.
Want to work with an industry leader in highway safety and technology? If you’d like to learn more about what MRIGlobal can do for your business or project, try our custom Project Quote Tool.