Table 1 Overview of identified challenges, opportunities and potential solutions

Lack of knowledge of CPMs. Many decision makers simply do not know much about CPMs and thus rely on established but lesser methods. CPMs can be seen as a domain of researchers.

Road agencies, researchers and educators may develop online factsheets and educational materials outlining different applications of CPMs, including case studies. Investment in practitioner tools which use CPMs is also encouraged.

Understanding applicability. Are already published CPMs useful in practitioners’ jurisdictions? Do they apply to their specific safety management problems?

Researchers should clearly state data sources and modelling purpose in CPM publications, and in such sources as CMF Clearinghouse, Highway Safety Manual or PRACT. (See a note on calibration below.)

Confusing choice of model types. There are many different types of CPMs focussing on different aspects of road safety performance management, e.g. crash type-specific, severity-specific, intersections, road segments, road type-specific, network screening vs. CMF development.

Researchers should state these basic intents clearly when publishing CPMs, pointing out limitations in applying their models in unintended ways. This will assist in interpretation of the CPM findings.

Education gap. High level of statistical expertise is required to understand and interpret CPM outputs. Practitioners often lack it.

Researchers should aim to present results so that practitioners will understand them, e.g. equations, tables, sets of graphs, or dynamic visualisations. Articles on application of CPMs should be published in online communication platforms popular with practitioners. CPMs should be included in Masters-level engineering education.

Calibration. When models are published, there is little practical advice available how widely these can be used, or how to calibrate them to the local conditions.

Factsheets and ‘how-to’ guides can be provided as part of systems such as PRACT, to help practitioners in making these decisions.

Application in engineering practice. Even well-communicated and understood CPMs may be too difficult to access if not included in practitioner guidance and tools.

Road agencies and researchers should invest in practitioner tools using CPMs. Big data and online mapping platforms make this task easier and lower cost than in the past. CPMs ‘approved’ for use by experts should be included in the guidelines.

Data availability. Traditionally lack of adequately large road and crash data sample hampered the CPM development.

Big data platforms, connected vehicle technologies and surrogate safety measures are developing fast. With adequate research and development investment, these sources will provide exponentially larger data samples than available from traditional sources.

Modelling task. Data preparation and modelling tasks remain a domain of statistics experts and require dedicated software.

Raise of free programming and software environments for statistical computing has opened this area of research to many. Many online big data platforms allow creation of specialist open source tools for complex mathematical tasks. It is possible that such tools will be developed to guide and simplify data preparation and modelling tasks.

Implementing CPMs in road safety management.

More practitioners could benefit from CPMs with improved education (e.g. factsheets, online resources) and easier access via practitioner tools, such as for example PRACT web repository.