Access management (AM) is the process that provides (or manages) access to land development while preserving safety, capacity, and speed on the surrounding road network. These benefits have been increasingly recognized at all levels of government, and a growing number of agencies are managing access by requiring driveway permit applications and establishing where new access should be allowed. They are also closing, consolidating, or improving driveways, median openings, and intersections as part of their AM implementation strategy. However, these decisions are often challenged for various reasons, and there have been few scientifically rigorous evaluations to quantify the safety effects of corridor AM. As such, there is a need to provide additional information to help rationalize decisions related to AM so that agencies can better explain the safety benefits of their policies and practices. This study seeks to fill some of the safety-related research gaps—namely, to quantify the safety impacts of corridor AM decisions. The objective of this research was to evaluate the safety effects of corridor AM policies and strategies on urban, suburban, and urbanizing arterials. Crash prediction models were developed using more than 600 mi of detailed corridor data from four different regions in the United States. The crash prediction models were estimated using generalized linear modeling. Agencies can use the crash prediction models to assess the safety impacts of their decisions related to corridor AM.

This guidebook is for transportation agency managers, engineers, and planners who want their agencies to use the planning process to implement a systematic and consistent approach to access management. For employees who are dealing with the consequences of poor access management at the project and operational levels, the guidance provides a resource that outlines the specific steps their agencies can take to establish a policy and planning basis for implementing access management best practices. This guidance focuses on how to use the planning process to establish the implementing mechanisms that will result in the application of access management principles.

Transportation agencies increasingly emphasize access management programs as a cost-effective way of achieving improved safety and capacity on roadways, improved aesthetics and air quality, and better coordination of transportation and land development. This paper presents a summary of access management goals, regulatory/policy approaches, and successes/conclusions of other states and countries. States take a range of different regulatory approaches to access management. There is a high level of agreement that managing the location, design, and operation of driveways, median openings, and street connections to a roadway can reduce accidents, improve traffic flow, and discourage strip development. The effects of access management on business vitality and economic development have not yet been as extensively studied.

Access management techniques such as raised median installation and driveway consolidation improve safety conditions for motorists. Several locations where these access management techniques have been installed in the state of Utah were selected for analysis of the safety benefits. Although crash rates were not necessarily reduced as a result of the access management techniques, other safety improvements were observed.

The Iowa Department of Transportation's Access Management Task Force was established as part of the Iowa Department of Transportation's overall Safety Management System (SMS) effort. The goal of the Access Management Task Force is to develop a program designed to educate and market the concept and benefits of access management to landowners and developers, professional planners and engineers, planning and zoning staff members, appointed and elected officials, and motorists. Access management is pursued through the design and control of driveways, curb cuts, turning movements, interior circulation of parking lots, and public street connections and intersections. Usually, state highways or major urban and suburban arterial streets are the targets of access management projects. Access management is also a concern on main county roads when there is a transition from a rural environment to a town or city.