Traffic and Safety Management Needs in Virginia

About the report:

A survey questionnaire was developed to identify traffic operations and safety management needs in Virginia. Form A of the questionnaire was mailed to 79 traffic engineering practitioners throughout Virginia and Form B was mailed to 78 law enforcement officials throughout Virginia and 10 area safety coordinators employed by the Virginia Department of Transportation Safety. Form B was identical to Form A except for the deletion of specific items pertaining to traffic engineering practitioners. There were 72 respondents to Form A of the questionnaire and 71 respondents to Form B, for a combined return rate of 85% of the questionnaires mailed. It was found that the majority of the respondents perceived their role in traffic engineering and highway safety activities as being an administrative one, and the respondents to Form A indicated that a little over half of the communities they represented employed no full-time traffic engineers. A large majority of the respondents indicated either a great need or some need for training of their employees having traffic engineering responsibilities. Besides a lack of qualified traffic engineering personnel, other needs indicated by the survey included increased funding, evaluation of traffic control devices and pavement markings, skid resistance studies, evaluation of signalized intersections, and identification of hazardous locations. It is recommended that consideration be given to providing traffic engineering services on a rotating basis for small communities and that training programs be developed to increase traffic engineering expertise.

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