Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) relies on data-driven approaches to identify high-risk locations and guide investments in roadway safety. This combined research effort advances Virginia’s safety management practices through three complementary studies focused on freeway ramp interchanges, collector-distributor (CD) roads, and two-lane rural roads (TLRR). First, to support network screening, Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) were developed for entrance and exit ramps at public roadway (typically non-freeway, or non-limited access roads) interchanges, system to system interchange ramps, and collector-distributor roads at interchanges. Analyses revealed that SPFs developed using both Hoerl and power functions provided comparable goodness-of-fit. The resulting SPFs have been integrated into VDOT’s network screening process to identify potential for safety improvement (PSI) ramp segments. Second, VDOT calibrated the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) predictive method for ramps to support evaluating safety performance for geometric design projects on entrance ramps, exit ramps, CD roads, and connector ramps. This evaluation used data from 587 ramp segments to develop calibration factors, calibration functions, calibrate severity distribution functions (SDFs), and develop updated default crash type distributions. The results suggested that entrance and exit ramps should be calibrated separately from CD roads and connector ramps. Additionally, the results suggested that fatal and injury crashes can be calibrated separately from property damage only crashes. The study recommended calibration factors for entrance and exit ramps, and calibration functions for CD roads and connector ramps. Third, a systemic safety prioritization framework for TLRR combined a negative binomial SPF and fatal-and-injury crash density analysis to score 17,027 miles of TLRR. Segments were scored, normalized, and grouped into four risk tiers at both statewide and district levels. Then they were aggregated into corridors to support flexible segment-, curve-, or corridor-level reviews and site selections. The top 2.7 percent of segments captured nearly half of all severe roadway departure crashes, providing a repeatable, data-driven tool for statewide and district-level planning. Collectively, these studies expand Virginia’s capabilities to identify, prioritize, and address high-risk locations, advancing the Commonwealth’s commitment to the Safe System approach and enabling more strategic allocation of safety resources.
