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88 chapter six Study ConCluSionS Every year in the United States, employees of state departments of transportation (DOTs) are killed and injured while at work in highway work sites. These highway worker injuries and fatalities are sad consequences of the high risk associated with working in active construction and maintenance work sites and on roadways near active traffic ways. The purpose of this synthesis study is to examine state DOT health and safety policies and determine how policies are implemented to help protect highway workers while they perform their duties in work sites. Summary of findingS Four primary tasks were performed for this synthesis report: literature review, survey, injury data analysis, and follow-up interviews (case examples). Highlights of the findings from each task are detailed in this section. The collective research examining current issues in highway worker safety indicates this topic is one of significant concern. Much of the literature discusses issues related to vehicles and their effect on safety in work sites. There is also a significant amount of research regarding the hazards of work sites from the perspective of the highway workers. Several elements that can be effective aspects of an agencyâs highway worker safety program have been defined in the literature. Considering the literature and data analysis practices from the traffic engineering, construction engineering, and maintenance fields can help with the development of aspects of highway worker safety programs. Exploring recent trends in each of these fields can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the unique challenges in highway work sites. Previous research has shown that identifying all of the stake holders, including the owners, workers, emergency medical services, law enforcement, designers, local agencies, and insurance companies, can better allow the natural efforts of these groups to improve safety to achieve a more efficient and effective product. Finally, the evaluation of existing programs and continual updating of them as trends and data change can ensure the con- tinued effectiveness of program elements. The survey results reveal that the state DOTs are diverse. Each state DOT experiences its own set of issues and remains committed to improving the safety of its employees in highway work sites. With this diversity comes opportunity. Some state DOTs have invested time and money into a new safety program, and others have invested into other programs and ideas. From a nationwide highway worker safety perspective, sharing the research and program methods is an economically efficient means to potentially improving safety. Although institutional limitations may prevent some state DOTs from following the model of other state DOTs that have a successful safety program element, understanding fellow state DOT programs can be useful in adapting the broad safety ideas to a new organizational context. Making data-driven decisions requires the availability of data. The four publicly available data sources analyzed, when used together, can help to quantify and describe current issues in highway worker safety. Understanding the functionality of each data set allows state DOTs to conduct effec- tive research for developing new safety program elements and benchmarking existing elements to monitor their effectiveness. Highway worker safety needs to be examined at the national and state levels to understand general trends and causes of traumatic incidents. Although state-specific data are the most useful for the state DOTs, these nationwide statistics on highway worker safety can be
89 beneficial. The statistics can be used to establish a benchmark with which states can evaluate areas of highway worker safety in which the states can most improve with respect to the rest of the United States. States can rely on their individual state databases to effect change within their state. The exist- ing national data sets explored for this synthesis were diverse and presented data in a variety of ways. This is helpful for understanding the breadth of available data, but the lack of integration across data sets poses limits on certain types of analysis. The current structure of the data sets reviewed does not allow for the information regarding individual incidents to be identified across different archives. The program elements that are implemented by a state DOT and affect the safety of state DOT employees can be diverse. This diversity contributes to a multifaceted approach that is necessary to reduce the safety risk to highway workers. Examples of innovative and unique safety program ele- ments found in some state DOTs include a near miss reporting program, monitoring leading indica- tors, a return-to-work initiative, a work zone executive steering committee composed of state DOT and industry representatives, a design for safety initiative, a data-driven public relations and work site awareness program, and a worker safety idea incentive program. New program elements are com- monly developed based on means other than data analytics. In-depth investigation into each safety program element reveals an agency-level view of safety programs from the individuals who manage such programs on a daily basis. These safety program elements vary in their application of data to drive implementation or evaluation. Data do not appear to be used extensively in health and safety programs for state DOT workers, particularly in the evaluation of the existing programs. Significant details, challenges, and efforts are required to maintain effective safety programs. This perspective is an excellent complement to the national trends of agency practice and perspective highlighted by the data analysis and survey results. BarrierS to WideSpread implementation Various barriers contribute to obstructing the widespread implementation of data-driven highway worker safety policies and programs. The barriers identified through the literature review, survey, data analysis, and follow-up interviews conducted for this synthesis include aspects of organizational design, culture, technology, funding, and interorganizational collaboration. More specifically, the following barriers were identified: ⢠Data regarding highway work sites are collected at the federal and state levels. Moving forward, state DOTs could work to integrate national and state injury incident data in efforts to improve highway worker safety. ⢠Data integration is especially important when tracking the effectiveness of safety program ele- ments. Budgetary restrictions can limit the number of components included in a safety program. ⢠Analysis of the survey responses revealed that improvements in data sharing and data availabil- ity could be helpful in allowing states to make data-driven decisions for their safety programs. ⢠Currently, freely available public data sources are a challenge to combine. It is likely that indi- vidual incidents appear in more than one of the archives, but the recording methodology for each of the programs is different enough to make it challenging if not impossible to isolate a particular incident across multiple data sets. ⢠There is a significant need for rigorous quantitative evaluation of highway worker safety pro- grams and policies. Many of the novel programs identified through the survey and follow-up interviews had not yet undergone evaluation to quantify their impact. SuggeStionS for future reSearCh There is an opportunity for future research to advance what is known about highway worker safety and worker safety practices within state DOTs. Suggestions for future research needs include, but are not limited to, the following: ⢠State DOTs could benefit from future research on how to use data to develop and implement a limited number of targeted safety programs for maximum impact rather than simply trying an overabundance of program elements that may not result in the same level of overall effectiveness.
90 ⢠To assist state DOTs, future research is suggested that establishes risk factors for highway workers based on work site conditions and operations. The risk factors can be used to design and manage work operations to minimize safety risk. This type of research could be conducted effectively using experimental tools that simulate worker, driver, and equipment operator inter- action in a safe, virtual environment. ⢠State DOTs require a framework for conducting quantitative evaluations of individual safety program elements. The framework would require a data dictionary to define relevant perfor- mance measures for particular types of program elements, guidance on how to structure the implementation for the purpose of increasing the validity of the evaluation, and a mechanism for determining the overall return on investment for a particular intervention. ⢠One critical aspect of highway worker safety is the safety culture of state DOTs. There is a need for a robust procedure to evaluate the safety culture of state DOTs so that safety program ele- ments aimed at improving safety culture can be evaluated objectively. ⢠The existing databases of national health and safety data that are collected and compiled by various agencies, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), present various aspects of helpful information, but there is little integration of these data sets. New research could be conducted to determine ways these data sources could be integrated to offer more detailed and flexible health and safety informa- tion to state DOTs. In addition, efforts to improve usability and access to publicly available data sets (such as National Council of Compensation Insurance data) could be useful to state DOTs. ⢠The exploration of ânear missâ incidents across state DOTs and the establishment of an easily understood standard definition could limit underreporting (or inconsistent reporting) of near miss incidents that occur in highway work sites. ⢠The state DOTs each have a unique structure based on the individual needs of that state. This diversity of structure could motivate future research investigating how the organizational struc- ture of a state DOT leads to improved safety.
