GHSA, Michelin Mobility Intelligence Fund Advanced Roadway Safety Data Analysis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Adam Snider (GHSA), 202-580-7930
David Finleyson (Michelin)

$300,000 in grants will give three states a better, more up-to-date picture of traffic safety problems and how to address them

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Expanding a successful effort to use advanced data analysis to improve roadway safety, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) and Michelin Mobility Intelligence (MMI) have provided another $300,000 in competitive grants to three states to harness cutting-edge data to gain new insights that can make roads safer for everyone using them.

The State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) in Connecticut, North Dakota and Washington will each receive $100,000 in Michelin data services, allowing them to develop a more current, complete and nuanced understanding of traffic safety issues, risk hotspots and where to deploy resources. This investment in safety data insights, based on a competitive application process, follows another $300,000 that GHSA and MMI awarded to three states in 2024.

Providing advanced data analysis that utilizes modern sources to supplement legacy crash data helps state safety officials better understand what is happening on the road and what they should do to address it. Enabling SHSOs to synergize the analysis of long-term trends using crash and fatality data with more immediate roadway data helps them run safety programs as efficiently and effectively as possible to have the biggest impact with limited financial resources.

“New and innovative data analysis has led to advancements in so many other fields – like public health, finance and marketing – but roadway safety has been slow to modernize and adapt to the data revolution,” said GHSA Chief Executive Officer Jonthan Adkins. “Unlocking new safety data and insights will help communities across the country improve safety for everyone on the road.”

The three SHSOs will utilize the grant funding in the following ways:

• Connecticut: The Highway Safety Office (HSO) at the Connecticut Department of Transportation will use MMI telematics data to understand driver behavior in work zones. Safety in roadway work zones is a persistent concern in Connecticut and around the nation. The HSO will conduct a comparative data analysis between four zones selected for a Speed Safety Camera Pilot Program and five non-pilot zones as a control. This will enable the HSO to explore the role and efficacy of speed cameras in the pilot zones, compare it with data from non-pilot zones, and identify risks in work zones due to non-compliant driver behavior.
• North Dakota: The North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) will use MMI’s data analysis for pre- and post-implementation evaluation of the impact of the state’s Vision Zero Highway Safety Corridors. These corridors are roadway segments with higher fatality and serious injury crash rates where low-cost safety solutions can be applied. The MMI analysis will supplement currently available data to help provide a more comprehensive picture that can inform the location, design and implementation of future safety corridors the state is planning.
• Washington: The MMI team, working closely with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC), will generate Kepler maps for all state roads for use in the planning of traffic safety enforcement efforts. Using these maps, the WTSC and the Washington State Patrol will identify locations for MMI to conduct a before-and-after analysis of how enforcement impacts driver behavior. This data will be used by the WTSC and WSP to improve the enforcement decision-making process and reduce the number of crashes, injuries and deaths on the state’s roads.

"We are thrilled to continue our partnership with GHSA to help state highway safety office grantees pinpoint risks on their road networks and take action,” said Vikram Raju, President and COO of Michelin Mobility Intelligence North America. “This effort underscores Michelin’s commitment to helping improve road safety and highlights the transformative power of data in managing road networks. With our data insights, these three states can better understand dangerous driving behavior on roadways, evaluate deployments in near real-time, and prioritize limited resources.”

“This data analysis will help the North Dakota Department of Transportation make the most of our Highway Safety Corridors by showing us where to focus infrastructure improvements, education and enforcement activities,” said Karin Mongeon, Highway Safety Division Director with NDDOT. “The Michelin behavioral data will supplement existing data analyses to provide a more accurate and robust picture of what’s happening on our roads so we can most efficiently use critical safety resources.”

The myriad benefits that advanced data analysis can bring to roadway safety will be explored in depth at the GHSA 2025 Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh this August. A senior official from Michelin will share an update on the impact of these grants, discuss the value of data analysis in roadway safety planning and examine ways State Highway Safety Offices can collaborate to modernize their data analysis capabilities.

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