Citian at the AASHTO Safety Summit: Driving Towards a Safer Transportation Future

This year, members of Citian had the privilege of again attending the AASHTO Safety Summit & Peer Exchange, an annual gathering of transportation professionals, safety experts, state DOT leaders, and industry innovators, this year in New Orleans, LA. The event reaffirmed for us the critical importance of safety throughout the entire roadway management lifecycle and inspired fresh ideas we’re excited to bring to our work.

‍

Why we attended

‍

At Citian, our mission is to support transportation leaders and safety stakeholders with technology that improves communication, prioritization, recommendations, and operations. The AASHTO Summit provided:

• Access to the latest thinking on the “safe systems approach” and how to integrate safety principles throughout planning, design, operations, and maintenance. 
• Opportunities to engage with state DOT practitioners, regional transportation leaders, and private sector partners to share lessons learned and build collaboration. 
• Insights on emerging challenges like speed management, post-crash response, data analytics, and how we can align our services to meet those needs.

‍

Key Takeaways from the Citian Team

‍

1. Safety is everyone’s responsibility

‍One major theme: safety cannot just be a “checkbox” at the end of a project. The Summit emphasized the importance of embedding safety throughout policy, planning, and operations.

For Citian, this means our technology should serve government staff at all levels and at all stages: data gathering, risk screening, design scoping, operations planning, and project evaluation.

‍

2. Tailored solutions matter
It’s clear that one-size-fits-all safety strategies don’t work. Different states, geographies, and communities have unique traffic patterns, road user behaviors, weather conditions, and safety cultures. The Summit reinforced that context matters. For Citian, we must customize our approach by understanding each client’s network, community values, and relationships with their government partners, and tailor our methods accordingly.

‍

3. Data, partnerships & technology elevate safety
Across sessions, participants emphasized the importance of leveraging new data sources and forging partnerships with researchers, automotive industry members, and various contractors. These complement traditional infrastructure solutions by illuminating behavioral risk data and network-wide trends. Citian is adept at incorporating richer datasets and partner ecosystems into our work to better support agencies in making informed decisions.

‍

How Citian will act on what we learned

‍

• We will integrate safety screening tools earlier in our clients' project life cycles, incorporating network-level trends, risk, and cost considerations.
• We will tailor solution options for clients rather than offer generic templates, factoring in local context, community patterns, and agency culture.
• We will foster collaboration by encouraging clients to engage cross-functionally (engineering, planning, operations, communications) and to consider public-private partnerships in safety planning.
  
  

What it means for our clients

‍

For jurisdictions considering working with Citian, our participation at the Summit signals that:

• We’re plugged into the cutting-edge of transportation safety planning.
• We are equipped to help agencies respond to evolving policy expectations, funding priorities, and shifts in safety culture.
• We are committed to delivering solutions that are effective and tailored to your context.
  
  

Looking ahead

‍

Each year, nearly 40,000 fatalities occur on US roadways, and the numbers are rising for vulnerable road users.  As the Summit illustrated, momentum is building as agencies adopt safe system thinking, pursue data-driven strategies, and collaborate more broadly. Citian is prepared to help you ride that wave. We look forward to working with our clients and partners to translate insight into action and deliver safety innovation, operations, and planning solutions that move us toward safer roads for all.

‍