Comprehensive Safety Action Plans

Image Credit: FHWA

Comprehensive Safety Action Plans

What are Comprehensive Safety Action Plans?

In the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant program, Comprehensive Safety Action Plans (referred to as “Action Plans”) are the basic building blocks to significantly improve roadway safety. It supports the implementation of projects and strategies that will help achieve local, data-driven transportation safety goals.

What is the Goal of an Action Plan?

The goal of an Action Plan is to develop a holistic, well-defined strategy to prevent roadway fatalities and serious injuries in a locality, region, or on Tribal Lands.

What do Action Plans Include?

A successful Action Plan includes seven key components:
1
Leadership commitment and goal setting
2
Planning structure
3
Safety analysis
4
Engagement and collaboration
5
Policy and process changes
6
Strategy and project selections
7
Progress and transparency
To learn more about each component, check out the U.S. Department of Transportation Comprehensive Safety Action Plan webpage.

Safe System Approach

The Safe System Approach has been embraced by the transportation community as an effective way to address and mitigate the risks inherent in our enormous and complex transportation system. It works by building and reinforcing multiple layers of protection to both prevent crashes from happening in the first place and minimize the harm caused to those involved when crashes do occur. It is a holistic and comprehensive approach that provides a guiding framework to make places safer for people.

This approach involves a paradigm shift to improve safety culture, increase collaboration across all safety stakeholders, and refocus transportation system design and operation on anticipating human mistakes and lessening impact forces to reduce crash severity and save lives.

The Safe System Approach and Action Plans work together to help communities move from vision to action when improving safety of all road users.

Here’s what you need to know to bring the Safe System approach to your community.

The Safe System Approach
The objective of a Safe System Approach is to avoid serious crashes from happening in the first place, but if they do occur, to reduce the severity of conflicts between vehicles and road users and reduce impact forces so that collisions are never deadly.
It works by creating redundancy so that when something goes wrong in the system, there are backups in place to keep people from serious harm.
Click on each tab to learn more about the Safe System Approach, its key principles, objectives, and its connection to Action Plans.
Safe System Approach elements diagram
Safe System Approach Diagram
Six Principles of the Safe System Approach
The Safe System Approach is guided by six core principles:
  1. Death and serious injury are unacceptable
  2. Humans make mistakes
  3. Humans are vulnerable
  4. Responsibility is shared
  5. Safety is proactive
  6. Redundancy is crucial
A truly safe system will weave together all six principles throughout each of the Action Plan components.
Learn more about each principle on USDOT's Safe System Approach webpage.
Safe System Approach elements diagram
Safe System Approach Diagram
Five Elements of the Safe System Approach
The five elements of the Safe System Approach include:
  1. Safe People/Road Users
  2. Safe Roads
  3. Safe Vehicles
  4. Safe Speeds
  5. Post Crash Care
These elements are not sufficient on their own, but when proactively implemented as a whole, redundancy is created, and the entire roadway network becomes safer.
Learn more about each objective on USDOT's Safe System Approach webpage.
Safe System Approach elements diagram
Safe System Approach Diagram
Safe System Approach in Action Plans
Incorporating the Safe System Approach is a key foundation for developing a comprehensive Action Plan.
It provides a structured way to reduce roadway fatalities and injuries by shifting the focus from individual behavior to a system-level change. Rather than expecting perfect behavior, the approach acknowledges human mistakes and vulnerabilities and designs a transportation system to prevent those mistakes from occurring.
By embedding this approach into your Action Plan, you can create strategies that are proactive and resilient, leading to safer roads and road users in your community.
Action plan implementation with Safe System Approach
Safe System Approach Diagram

Additional Resources

Explore additional tools and insights to support your journey in developing an Action Plan.
Safe System Approach Video
The video provides an overview of the philosophy behind the Safe System Approach and uses a scenario that illustrates opportunities to save lives when the Safe System Approach is implemented.
Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy
This document is a tool that characterizes engineering and infrastructure-based countermeasures and strategies relative to their alignment with the Safe System Approach, toward the goal of eliminating traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries.
FHWA Safe System Approach Overview
This resource provides an overview of the Safe System Approach, emphasizing its critical role in improving roadway safety. It explains the core principles and objectives of the approach and illustrates how it fundamentally differs from traditional road safety practices.
Community of Practice: Safe System Approach
This webinar provides an in-depth review of the Safe System Approach and discusses how SS4A grant recipients can use it to maximize the benefits of their projects.

Have a question about how you can apply the Safe System Approach to your Action Plan?

The SS4A Technical Assistance Center team can help! Transportation safety specialists are available to answer questions, share helpful resources, and recommend next steps to address grant recipient specific needs.
Coaching icon Request one-on-one coaching with a transportation specialist to discuss your roadway safety challenges.
Email icon Email the SS4A Inbox with questions.

Get Inspired by Real Action Plans

Dive into our collection of completed Action Plans from SS4A grant recipients across the country! Use this space to explore, get inspired, and see how other grant recipients are applying the Safe System Approach in their communities.

Filter Results by Agency Types:

S4A logo with each letter positioned in a quadrant of a divided box
Home
Grant Recipient Roadmap
Resource Library
Technical Assistance
Division Offices
Image Credits
U.S. DOT Federal Highway Administration logo and name

This site is funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration and maintained by the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) Technical Assistance Center.

The information contained in the SS4A Clearinghouse website is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in the SS4A Clearinghouse. The information contained in the SS4A Clearinghouse does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation, nor is it a substitute for sound engineering judgment.