The Road Safety Professional (RSP) certification is a national credential offered by the Transportation Professional Certification Board (TPCB) that demonstrates competency in providing safety for the traveling public. While certification is pursued by a variety of professionals in safety-related industries, including law enforcement and public health, the objectives of the certification are highly relevant to the Transportation Planning and Engineering industries. Civiltech is proud to have two RSP certified professionals on our team!
Mark Shorey is an Engineer working in both Civiltech’s Traffic Engineering and Transportation Planning departments and recently received his RSP1 certification. Mark chose to pursue his RSP certification to increase his depth of knowledge of road safety practices which he recognized would be beneficial to his increasing participation in Civiltech safety studies. Also, he felt that as a frequent pedestrian and cyclist he brought a unique perspective to the concepts being taught.
In describing the purpose of the RSP training, Mark explained that the RSP approach to understanding road safety is data driven, and by focusing on safety data as the primary informational source the program helps professionals in the varied public safety arena speak the same language. A major component of the exam and certification is identifying the standards to be used so that all professionals are working from the same page. 
At Civiltech, Mark works in both a planning and engineering capacity combining his background in civil engineering, geography, and GIS. Another aspect of the RSP program he appreciated is that the content bridges the way planners and engineers look at safety in the transportation network. He stated that it is interesting to see that safety can be a gray area, and that even a road engineered correctly to the latest standards can have other factors making it functionally unsafe.
Anmol Shrivastava recently received his RSP2I certification. With his new certification, he is one of only 11 RSP2I’s in the State of Illinois and of only 200 in North America!
Anmol previously carried the Level 1 certification which is intended to demonstrate an understanding of the fundamentals. Level 2 builds on Level 1 for a deeper level of knowledge and understanding. Also, Level 2 has two specializations: “I” focuses on infrastructure specialty, and “B” focuses on behavioral specialty.
Anmol chose to pursue his RSP2I certification to increase his safety management knowledge and skills. He appreciated that the program armed him with information on critical aspects such as acquiring and utilizing safety data, interpolating trends, understanding crash data, identifying countermeasures, multimodal transportations safety, and addressing safety problems with policy. Additionally, Anmol appreciated the program’s focus on policies such as Vision Zero and Safe System Approach.
When asked how the qualifications of an RSP2I certification can impact the role of a Traffic Engineer, Anmol stated that it contributes to the confidence in knowing how safety works and the benefit of applying this knowledge to the design of the transportation network. The RSP data-driven approach is proactive and predictive which allows Traffic Engineers to have a prescient design approach.