SHA Organization

Office of Traffic and Safety

Traffic Development and Support Division
The Traffic Development and Support Division (TDSD) provides development and organizational support for new and expanded programs and practices, and provides guidance and day to day support for the overall statewide traffic engineering program. Its three major teams and their principal functions are:

Traffic Engineering Support Team
The Traffic Engineering Support Team provides capacity analysis for planning projects, highway design projects, etc. Provides traffic engineering support to all Districts and the Director, other Divisions, and staff of OOTS. Determines traffic signal system timing for locations throughout the State. Reviews and comments on all Traffic Impact Studies. Provides traffic engineering support on Special Projects (i.e., HOV, roundabout, access management, congestion management, air quality). Coordinates Special Projects Fund 76. Coordinates Peer Review Teams.

Statewide Studies Team
The Statewide Studies Team administers statewide traffic engineering projects and conducts major traffic planning and engineering studies. Provides technical expertise to the Administration, other modals, and local governments in such specialized areas as rail-highway and mass transit-highway safety, truck safety, special events routing and administration, and Federal categorical grant application and administration. Administers categorical traffic programs in the areas cited.

Traffic Policy and Management Team
The Traffic Policy and Management Team provides technical assistance to other offices on work zone traffic control matters. Oversees traffic engineering research projects performed by consultants. Conducts minor traffic engineering research studies - develops work plans, collects data, performs analysis and prepares reports. Reviews and develops proposed policies, guidelines, standards, specifications directives, etc. Develops alternative routes for incident management Provides traffic engineering support to District Staff. Distributes technical traffic and transportation reference books.

Traffic Safety Analysis Division

Information Systems Section
The Information Systems Section is responsible for collecting crash data (from State Police MAARS files) and maintaining a crash database to support traffic engineering and education efforts. It publishes an inventory of roads statewide (excluding Baltimore City) that is used by law enforcement to locate accidents and assists the State Police in editing, entering, processing, and storing the data by developing software for this specific application. The Section produces numerous routine and ad-hoc reports/listings, including the Candidate Safety Improvement Sections, accident profiles on various subjects, summary crash data, and detailed crash listings. It maintains micro-film copies of accident reports. The section provides accident data to local government agencies.