Multimodal Transportation Safety Paradigm
​
​The primary hazard encountered by road users is a collision with a motor vehicle. Past traffic safety efforts have largely focused on controlling that hazard via strategies such as speed management and temporal/spatial separation as opposed to eliminating or substituting the hazard. This report translates the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Hierarchy of Controls to the field of transportation safety to present a novel framework that effectively eliminates and substitutes roadway hazards. In the new Multimodal Transportation Safety Paradigm that is proposed, elimination and substitution of roadway hazards is accomplished via land use, infrastructure, and other strategies that promote multimodality, thereby allowing for fewer and shorter car trips and therefore lower hazard exposure. Evidence of the effectiveness of the new Multimodal Transportation Safety Paradigm is presented on the country, state, urban area, city, and corridor levels via a review of past literature, regression analyses, and a hierarchical multiple linear regression. Agencies pursuing road safety improvements should think beyond hazard control by seeking to eliminate/substitute hazards through a multimodal approach.
