A high-level traffic safety policy document for a small municipality: City of Saskatoon case study

Many jurisdictions have developed a high-level traffic safety policy document, such as the American “Strategic Highway Safety Plan” (SHSP) or the Canadian “Traffic Safety Action Plan” (TSAP). A SHSP and TSAP are both a scientific, data-driven, four to five year comprehensive safety document that is designed to identify a jurisdiction's areas of safety concern known as “emphasis areas” and establish target safety goals (i.e., collision reduction goal(s)) for each chosen emphasis area. A TSAP often includes additional information, such as network screening results and general safety strategies/programs for each chosen emphasis area. Most of the existing literatures focus on describing the process or outcome of the development of a state or province-level policy document and has little resources specifically for a small municipality. This study discusses the development of a TSAP for a small municipality through a case study for the City of Saskatoon. This study used the most recent ten years (2001–2010) of collision data in the City of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The study provides knowledge for those who wish to develop a TSAP by describing the process and highlighting the challenges in developing a TSAP for a small municipality.