This guide discusses the basic provisions of the conformity process, including the following: (1) A description of actions subject to conformity; (2) Frequency of conformity determinations; (3) Key components of a conformity determination; (4) Consequences of a failure to make a conformity determination; and (5) Roles and responsibilities of public agency staff, management, policy officials, and decision makers in the conformity process.

Blair Barnhardt's vision and goal is to create a movement across this nation that will increase awareness and training for pavement managers, politicians and everyday people that will in turn resurrect our flailing roadway system with less money and less carbon footprint. He is one of the few individuals that recognize the enormity of the problem at hand, but also brings the practical solution to solving it, hence The Book on Better Roads.

This publication will introduce you to the materials and methods used to construct flexible pavements for streets, highways, parking lots, and open storage areas. Flexible pavements are constructed using bituminous (asphalt or tar) concrete. The pavement's principal components are the subgrade, select materials for a subbase course, the base course, and the bituminous concrete pavement. This publication will introduce you to the important characteristics of these components, and a design methodology that will guide you in selection of appropriate material specifications and course thicknesses.

NHTSA conducted a survey from April to October 2005 to collect information about the types of restraint systems that were being used to keep children safe while riding in passenger vehicles. In particular, NHTSA was interested in whether drivers with Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH)- equipped vehicles were using LATCH to secure their child safety seats to the vehicle, and if so, were these seats properly installed. The make/model and the type of restraint installed in each seating position were recorded for each of the vehicles; demographic characteristics and the type of restraint system were collected for each occupant. In addition, information was gathered about the drivers' knowledge of booster seats and LATCH, along with their opinions on how easy it was to use LATCH.

With the increasing popularity of cellular phones and public concern about the safety of using phones while driving, there has been increased interest in tracking the incidence of driver cell phone use. This report presents the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) most recent results on this topic, which come from NHTSA's National Occupant Protection Use Survey (NOPUS). The survey estimated that during daylight hours, drivers of cars, trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles used hand-held phones during 4% of their driving time in 2002, up from 3% in 2000. These results were obtained by observing actual traffic. In fact the NOPUS is currently the only source of probability-based observed national data on driver cell phone use.

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 201 - Occupant Protection in Interior Impact - was upgraded in 1995, with a 1998-2002 phase-in, to reduce occupants' risk of head injury from contact during crashes with a vehicle's upper interior, including its pillars, roof headers and side rails, and the upper roof. Initially, energy-absorbing materials alone were used to meet the standard; later, some vehicles were also equipped with head-protection air bags. NHTSA does not yet have enough crash data to evaluate the injury-reducing effectiveness of the energy-absorbing materials. However, the agency has conducted 154 matched pairs of impact tests with free-motion headforms in pre- and post-standard vehicles of 15 selected make-models.

Beginning September 1, 1993, all light trucks (pickup trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles) were required to meet a crush resistance standard for side doors. Data from calendar years 1989 through 2001 of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) were used to determine the effectiveness of changes made by vehicle manufacturers to meet this standard. Effectiveness was determined by comparing changes in the number of fatalities in side impacts relative to those in frontal impacts.

Rear window defrosting and defogging systems are not required on motor vehicles by any Federal standard. Rear window defoggers became available as optional or standard equipment in most cars during the 1970's or 1980's and are popular with consumers. Today, almost all passenger cars, minivans, and sport utility vehicles have rear window defoggers, but most pickup trucks and full-size vans do not. The analysis examined whether there were proportionately fewer backing-up and changing-lane crashes involving cars with rear-window defoggers than cars without rear-window defoggers. The database was extracted from State crash files.

This study estimates the effectiveness of passenger vehicle daytime running lights in reducing two-vehicle opposite direction crashes, pedestrian/bicycle crashes and motorcycle crashes. The author chose the generalized simple odds, a conventional statistical technique, to analyze the data.

This report was one in a series of pedestrian safety synthesis reports prepared for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to document pedestrian safety in other countries. This report is a review of recent pedestrian safety research in Sweden (in particular) with some attention to similar research in other Scandinavian countries. The report states that even in Sweden, where attention has long been paid to pedestrian and bicyclists concerns, even so, still too much traffic planning is addressed as if it were a vehicular issue only.

This report was one in a series of pedestrian safety synthesis reports prepared for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to document pedestrian safety in other countries. This report is a review of recent pedestrian safety research in the Netherlands. It addresses several topics, reporting findings and providing a comprehensive list of references. Topics addressed include: Pedestrian crossings and traffic calming measures: Here research is reviewed on pedestrian crossings; along with other research pertaining to infrastructure changes in the form of traffic calming. Children and the elderly: One study shows that children are now less likely to walk to school than in earlier times because of parental concern for their safety. Measures for increasing safety of elderly pedestrians are also presented. Disabled pedestrians: Discussion is included concerning hardware and infrastructure that perhaps could be made in order to give better consideration to pedestrians with some kind of disability. Passenger car front-end structure: Discussion is presented as to the role of the car's structural properties as it influences injury severity in a collision with a pedestrian.

This report presents operational and safety findings and countermeasure recommendations from a comparative analysis of bicycle lanes (BLs) versus wide curb lanes (WCLs). The primary analysis was based on videotapes of almost 4,600 bicyclists in the cities of Santa Barbara, CA, Gainesville, FL, and Austin, TX. The videotapes were coded to learn about operational characteristics (e.g., intersection approach position and subsequent maneuvers) and conflicts with motor vehicles, other bicycles, or pedestrians.

This report was one of a series of Pedestrian safety synthesis reports prepared for the Federal Highway administration (FHWA) to document pedestrian safety in other countries. This is a review of recent research on pedestrian safety carried out in the United Kingdom. A comprehensive list of references is provided. The report covers many types of pedestrian facilities, the UK pedestrian safety record, as well as some education and enforcement matters. The report cites an access document with adequate references to allow further investigation of specific areas, and some commentary on research and implementation.

Procedures and criteria described here are applicable to the design and construction of roller-compacted concrete (RCC) pavement (RCCP). Roller-compacted concrete pavement employs a concrete paving technology that involves laydown and compaction of a zero-slump concrete mixture using equipment similar to that used in placement and compaction of asphaltic concrete pavement. By using these construction techniques, the potential exists to save one-third or more of the cost of conventional concrete pavement. Although the concept and technology behind RCCP is relatively new, RCCP has already proven itself cost-effective in projects including log-sorting yards, port facilities, heavy equipment parking areas, tank trails, and haul roads.

This report describes the development of WinSMASH2010, an extensive update and enhancement to the WinSMASH crash reconstruction code. The specific objectives were (1) to correct known programming bugs in the original WinSMASH, (2) convert the code from the obsolete Delphi language to C-Sharp to allow future upgrades, and (3) to enhance WinSMASH accuracy by implementing an automated method of selecting vehicle specific stiffness coefficients.

Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) use information and communications technologies (ICT) to deliver transport improvements instead of extending physical infrastructure, thereby saving money and reducing environmental impact. This book provides an overview of ICT-based intelligent road transport systems with an emphasis on evaluation methods and recent evaluation results of ITS development and deployment. Topics covered include: ITS evaluation policy; frameworks and methods for ITS evaluation; ITS impact evaluation; the network perspective; field operational tests (FOTs); assessing transport measures using cost-benefit and multicriteria analysis; technical assessment of the performance of in-vehicle systems; opportunities and challenges in the era of new pervasive technology; evaluation of automated driving functions; user-related evaluation of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and automated driving; evaluation of traffic management; performance assessment of a wet weather pilot system; case studies from China; heavy vehicle overload control benefit and cost. With chapters from an international panel of leading experts, this book is essential reading for researchers and advanced students from academia, industry and government working in intelligent road transport systems.