Results of the Safety Center’s Research Project: Assessing the Operational and Cultural Environment 

The National Center for Rural Road Safety (Safety Center) is hosting a FREE, 1.5-hour online webinar. 

Webinar Description

This webinar will provide an overview of the program of research undertaken by the Safety Center to understand the cultural and operational factors within traffic safety organizations that predict utilization of (effective) resources and tools for workforce training and education. 

Webinar Outcomes

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Describe a proposed model that relates cultural and operational factors to the utilization of workforce training and education tools and resources
• Understand those factors that are most predictive of such utilization with a sample of state DOTs.
• Discuss different forms of strategy that state DOTs can undertake to increase future utilization of workforce training and education tools and resources
• Recognize the importance of extending such research to local and tribal traffic safety agencies because of their fundamentally different cultural and operational environments.

 Target Audience

This training might be of most interest to state department of transportation staff and management. Participants should have some basic familiarity with transportation safety.

Course Presenters

 Nic Ward, Montana State University

• Professor Nicholas Ward (F. Erg. S) obtained his Ph.D. in Psychology (Human Factors) from Queen’s University, Canada. He is currently a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Montana State University. His more than 20 years leading international research applied to traffic safety has been based on a systems perspective focused on the driver, the vehicle, and the infrastructure. Over this time period, Professor Ward has secured over $15 million in research grants from government, commercial and non-profit organizations. Currently, Professor Ward is the Director of the Center for Health and Safety Culture (CHSC) in the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University. Nicholas is a founding member of the National Summit for Roadway Safety Culture and the Transportation Research Board Subcommittee on Roadway Safety Culture and international leader in advancement of traffic safety culture paradigm. This includes his current participation as the US representative to the multi-national European project on traffic safety culture (http://www.trasacu.eu/), his authorship of the FHWA white paper on traffic safety culture, his leadership in developing the traffic safety culture chapter to support the National Toward Zero Death strategy, the authorship of the recently published “A Primer for Traffic Safety Culture”, and his participation as the subject matter expert in the recently completed NCHRP domestic scan 14-03.

Jay Otto, Montana State University

• Jay Otto is a Research Scientist for the Center for Health and Safety Culture in the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University. Jay received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He leads the research efforts for the Center as well as participates in research projects. He is fascinated by human behavior, how systems influence behavior, and the role of culture. His issues of interest include substance abuse prevention, traffic safety, and violence prevention. 

Danena Gaines, Cambridge Systematics

• Danena Gaines, Ph.D. is a Senior Associate of Cambridge Systematics with 10 years of experience in transportation safety planning, safety data analysis and evaluation, and traffic safety research. She provides project management support on national, state, and local transportation safety planning projects. Her research background and professional experience include developing and conducting surveys and interviews to collect transportation safety planning practices and culture challenges for state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and local governments; implementing and evaluating Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSPs); and turning research and state of practice into practitioner-based guidebooks.
  

To register for the webinar, please click on the button below.  Instructions on accessing the webinar will be sent after your registration is confirmed.

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