Core Competencies for Highway Safety Professionals

This study was based on a scan of U.S. universities. It revealed to what extent core competencies for highway safety professionals are incorporated into existing safety curricula and suggests strategies to expand their application to a broader audience. The core competencies, developed under this project, will be useful to managers identifying the knowledge, skills, and abilities an organization as a whole requires, adjusting job descriptions and announcements, and working with other departments and managers to hire for these skills. Supervisors may also use the competencies to assess the level of the team's skills and make recommendations for individual training and assignments. The competencies include the following: (1) understanding the management of highway safety as a complex multidisciplinary system; (2) understanding of and the ability to explain the history of highway safety and the institutional settings in which safety management decisions are made; (3) understanding the origins and characteristics of traffic safety data and information systems to support decisions using a data-driven approach to managing highway safety; (4) (a) demonstrating the knowledge and skills to assess factors contributing to highway crashes, injuries, and fatalities, (b) identifying potential contributing factors, (c) applying countermeasures to user groups or sites to reduce crashes and injuries, and (d) implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of the countermeasures; and (5) developing, implementing, and managing a highway safety management program.