crash data | Crossroads

Reprinted from CTS News October 6, 2026

From freight, commercial, and public transit to personal commuters, delivery drivers, and emergency services, millions of vehicles travel Minnesota roadways each year. As the number of drivers on the roads grows, ensuring safe and reliable transportation infrastructure is crucial. A recent analysis performed by the Transportation Policy and Economic Competitiveness (TPEC) Program examined the performance and condition of Minnesota’s roadways at the county level from 2018–2024.

Using data regularly collected and maintained by the state, the TPEC team — led by Camila Fonseca-Sarmiento, director of fiscal research at the Institute for Urban and Regional Infrastructure Finance at the UMN’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a CTS scholar — assessed condition, safety, and performance trends of Minnesota transportation infrastructure and how these measures have changed over time. Bridge and pavement conditions were categorized as being in good condition, fair condition, or poor condition.

Pavement conditions and trends

The data examined focused on two roadway networks in Minnesota — the National Highway System (NHS) and the County State-Aid Highway (CSAH) system. The NHS, which includes interstates and local and national highways, makes up just 10 percent of statewide lane miles but carries a majority of vehicle traffic. The CSAH system carries significantly less traffic but is more than double the length of the NHS. Pavement types across these roadway networks were evaluated by surface distress or visible defects, ride quality or pavement smoothness, the overall condition of pavement, and the estimated time until the end of the pavement’s service life. Among the analysis’s key insights:

More than 80 percent of NHS roads and more than 60 percent of CSAH system roads are in good condition.
The CSAH system has more than double the number of roads in poor condition than the NHS.
Interstates consistently have the highest pavement quality.
Counties with an interstate highway tend to have the most vehicle traffic and pavement in good condition.
Counties in northwest Minnesota have the most CSAH roads in good condition while the metro area has the fewest.

Bridge conditions and trends

The team’s research found that the bridge network across Minnesota, comprising 13,500 bridges, remains generally well maintained. Some key trends identified:

Bridge conditions have been slowly declining since 2019, with the number of bridges in fair condition increasing.
As the population grows, the share of bridges in good condition declines.
Counties in northwest Minnesota have a higher rate of bridges in poor condition.

These insights indicate that more bridges will require greater levels of maintenance and preservation efforts in the years to come.

Crash trends

The COVID-19 pandemic altered the driving habits of many — as more people stayed home, fewer vehicles traveled the roads. While the total number of crashes across Minnesota has declined since 2020, the severity of crashes has risen slightly. Among the key crash trends from the report:

Minnesota counties average 929 crashes per 100,000 people.
Counties in southwest Minnesota have higher rates of property damage, injury, and fatal crashes.
Counties in northwest Minnesota have lower rates of property damage, injury, and fatal crashes.
Between 2019 and 2023, crashes statewide causing property damage decreased by 22 percent and fatal and injury crashes decreased by 13 percent.
Severe weather or wildlife encounters may be contributing to increased crashes in some counties.
As the population grows, crash rates increase.

Minnesota county map shaded by rates per 100,000, ranging from 0–500 to 1501+, with some areas marked NA

“The findings emphasize the importance of continued monitoring and investment in Minnesota’s transportation infrastructure,” Fonseca-Sarmiento says. “Understanding how roadway and bridge conditions vary throughout the state is essential for prioritizing resources when investing in the transportation network and improving safety. As transportation demands continue to evolve, data-driven decision-making will remain crucial to ensure a reliable and resilient transportation network for Minnesotans.”

— Krysta Rzeszutek, CTS digital editor

Related MnDOT Research from 2026

The data collected at the scene of a crash by law enforcement officers are important for more than just drivers and their insurance companies. The information is also used on a much larger scale by state agencies and researchers to analyze and evaluate crashes, trends, and potential countermeasures.

“Big decisions get made based on that data—million-dollar decisions,” says Nichole Morris, a research associate at the U of M’s HumanFIRST Laboratory. “So you have to be sure that what goes in to that report is high quality and reflects what actually happened at the scene of the crash.”

As part of an effort to improve this data quality in Minnesota, Morris is leading a team of HumanFIRST researchers in a project to redesign the electronic crash report interface used by law enforcement officers. The team’s goal is to create a new interface that improves the accuracy, speed, reliability, and meaningfulness of crash report data.

The project is occurring in conjunction with a redesign of Minnesota’s crash records database and is being sponsored by the Traffic Records Coordinating Committee (TRCC) at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) and by MnDOT.

“In industry, they do this work all the time, looking at usability and design. But when you think about what a state does in terms of usability, nothing like this to our knowledge has ever been done. This makes it a very exciting and revolutionary project for Minnesota,” Morris says.

In the first phase of the project, the researchers completed a human factors analysis on the existing crash report interface to identify potential problem areas. This included a step-by-step task analysis and in-depth interviews with law enforcement officers.

During this process, the researchers identified several areas they hoped to improve. For instance, they wanted the new interface to be smarter, making better use of autofill features to reduce the amount of manual data entry.

Following the analysis, the team built two versions of a mock crash report interface for usability testing: a wizard and a form. In both versions, the researchers added decision aids to ease usability. They also significantly improved the system’s autofill capabilities, reducing the ratio of officer to system data entry from 6:1 to nearly 1:1.

The researchers then conducted four rounds of usability testing with law enforcement officers for both the wizard and the form. Results were split: half the officers preferred the wizard and half preferred the form. Because of these findings, the TRCC is planning to build full versions of both, Morris says, which will allow officers to use the version they prefer.

Going forward, the researchers plan to make a few more adjustments to the research prototype before handing it off to the state vendor, Appriss, which will build the new system. The team will then work collaboratively with Appriss to complete additional beta and usability testing before the new interface launches in January 2016.

“The results of the HumanFIRST prototypes are being combined with the vendor’s prior experience for a best-of-breed approach,” says Kathleen Haney, traffic records coordinator at DPS. “This is a fantastic project, and the results will be relevant for years to come.”

Read more about the project in the December 2014 CTS Catalyst.

Minnesota's transportation research blog