Proposing Traffic Crash Data System Architecture for Improving Road Safety Analysis

High rates of traffic fatalities and injuries in Iran have pressured authorities to dedicate more resources to collect data and identify areas for crash prevention and safety improvement. At the same time, universities and NGOs are paying more attention to traffic casualties and traffic safety issues and the impacts of the traffic crashes on the society and the need of public involvement toward a safer transportation system. Present paper looks at the agencies whom can directly or indirectly be part of data systemarchitecture to assist traffic police to collect crash data more efficiently. The proposed approach would ease data collection at the crash scene, reduce human errors, improve data accuracy, minimize redundancies, reduce operational costs, and promote collaboration and cooperation among stakeholders to standardize data format for and data sharing. This paper reviewed potential agencies through web search and identified those can contribute and expedite crash data collection by traffic police. It was realized the authorities whom are associated with the drivers, vehicles, roadways, and medical emergencies record appropriate data attributes on a regular basis, but lack of connectivity and inconsistent data definitions minimize the potential for accurate crash data compilation and evaluations. Technological advances on data fusion, and relational databases allow bringing all parties resources/databases into a common platform and share the data. Data queries from this platform would enable analysts to produce meaningful reports for stakeholders and decision makers to dedicate adequate resources to combat this national problem and move toward a safer transportation system.

Keywords:

Road Safety , Police Crash Data , Data System Architecture , Data Interface