AASHTO Safety Summit and Peer Exchange

The 2026 Safety Summit and Peer Exchange will offer numerous peer exchange opportunities for state departments of transportation to network with safety practitioners from across the transportation industry. This annual conference, in its fourth year, will feature sessions co-hosted by various AASHTO committees, covering a wide array of safety topics, from designing safer transportation systems to improving highway worker safety. The program is designed to be diverse and practical, with sessions focusing on interaction and conversation among participants, presenters, panelists, and moderators through plenary and concurrent sessions. These sessions will facilitate discussions on national topics of joint interest and in-depth program-level peer exchange. Key additions for 2026 include an AASHTO Committee on Safety business meeting on September 27 to discuss priorities, and an AASHTOWare Safety by Numetric workshop on September 29, demonstrating a traffic safety analytics tool built on a software-as-a-service platform. Additionally, the event will include a poster session showcasing noteworthy examples from state DOTs regarding the integration of safety and the “Safe Systems Approach” across the project lifecycle and agency operations. Submissions from State DOTs and their partners are encouraged, highlighting successful safety-related projects, methods, initiatives, and research implementation activities, offering an opportunity to share innovative experiences with public, private, academic, and non-profit transportation professionals.