Integrated Safety Management System and Iowa Safety Management System: Introduction to Workshop Results

Introduced are the ideas found in the integrated safety management system (ISMSystem), published as National Cooperative Highway Research Program Report 501. The ISMSystem is founded upon the principle that aligning the activities of different agencies within a jurisdiction can result in a level of safety unobtainable by those agencies working independently and in decision-making isolation. In addition to providing highway safety benefits, implementing the ISMSystem should result in cost savings when the resources of different agencies are pooled and shared. The ISMSystem describes an organizational structure that includes a coalition of highway safety agencies that develops a common mission and vision at the highest level of management. Safety professionals with expertise in relevant emphasis areas are recruited into teams to address the specific goals set out by the coalition and in doing so produce action plans that integrate the activities of the implementing agencies. The integrated safety management process describes the process for going from crash data to integrated action plans to increase safety. A workshop introducing safety professionals to the ISMSystem and allowing multidisciplinary teams to practice developing strategies to address safety emphasis areas has been recently conducted in the state of Iowa. The key lessons from the Iowa workshop are summarized, including the need for setting quantifiable safety goals, the need for both horizontal and vertical agency integration, interaction among emphasis areas, and the types of issues the ISMSystem is designed to address.