Applying Safety Improvements to Fleet Vehicles

The safety of both employees and the motoring public is of paramount importance to Caltrans, resulting in a continuing effort to improve the operating vehicle fleet. The potential safety changes that are the focus of this project are those that involve safety equipment enhancement over and above the original specifications for the vehicle or outside of the scope of the original equipment design or purpose, such as rear view backup video cameras. The motivation for this project was Division of Equipment (DOE) managers' need for an objective strategy to address safety equipment deployment issues. These include determining where equipment changes should be made, whether statewide or only in specific locations, what types of vehicles will be involved, and how the changes should be made, for example, immediately retrofitting certain vehicles or changing the specifications for future vehicles. Neither question needs to be answered on an absolute basis; for example, it may be appropriate to immediately retrofit particular vehicles in certain locations while changing the specifications for new vehicles to be deployed in other locations. Additionally, the problem may have non-equipment solutions such as changes to policies and procedures.