When MPOs Can't Access Predictive Crash Modeling, Planning Suffers

A recap of Citian's presentation at the AMPO Safety Interest Group: Q2 Meeting — What Predictive Crash Models Mean for MPOs

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At the AMPO Safety Interest Group Q2 Meeting on June 2, one finding stopped the room before the presentations even began.

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When attendees were asked whether their agency has access to predictive crash modeling, 70% said they don't. Another 14% said their state DOT has the capability but doesn't make it available to them.

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That's 84% of MPO planners making safety investment decisions without the ability to anticipate where the next serious crash is likely to occur.

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What CRTPO and SCAG Shared

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Will Snyder of CRTPO talked about how CRASH has changed the way his team engages with local partners throughout the development of their comprehensive safety action plan. The platform gives local agencies something to react to and build from, making those conversations more productive and the resulting plan more grounded in what's actually happening on the network.

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Mike Gainor of SCAG focused on a specific application in San Bernardino County. With CRASH, his team could examine crash patterns near intersections in detail and use the countermeasure before-and-after capability to understand whether safety improvements had made a measurable difference. That kind of analysis is what agencies need to defend investment decisions and plan the next round of improvements.

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The Bigger Picture

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Those numbers reflect a real gap in how safety decisions get made. When agencies can't run predictive analysis, they rely on what has already happened rather than where risk is building. Investment decisions get made without a systematic way to show alternatives were evaluated.

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That gap also affects local partner buy-in. Without a shared platform for understanding where risk is concentrated, safety planning stays abstract, and getting locals aligned around priorities becomes significantly harder.

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Closing that gap is what the CRASH platform is built to do. If your MPO doesn't have access to predictive crash modeling, let's talk.