Urban Accident Analysis Systems

Sistemas de Análisis de la Accidentalidad Urbana [1/4/05 – 30/6/07]

Prof. Dr. Jaime Sanmartín

Dr. Mauricio Chisvert
Jean François Pace

Project co-financed by
 The European Commission. Directorate-General Transport and
Energy (TREN-03-ST-S07.30828).
 Universitat de València (20040272)
 Generalitat Valenciana (GVACOMP2006-164/GVACOMP2007-176).
 Project objectives
 Main Objective:
 Design, validation, discussion and diffusion, at a European
level, of the ‘best practices’ for the collection, processing
and analysis of traffic accident data in urban areas.

 Operative objectives:
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 Analysing in detail several Spanish cities of different size.

 Detect the main problems & solutions in several EU cities.
 Exchange experiences between experts from several EU
countries.

 The final result:

 A guide of advices and “best practices” in order to
improve the systems that deal with the monitoring of traffic
accidents in urban areas.

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 Structure of the project

Documentary Case study Survey study Workshop

revision (Spain) (EU) (EU)
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Guide of best
practices

Urban City/town National/regional

policies RS authorities RS authorities

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 Participants in the “case study”
 Ayuntamiento de Valencia
(Council of Valencia), through
Castellon 163.088
the city’s road traffic
department and the local police
Elche 207.163  Ayuntamiento de Murcia
(Council of Murcia), through
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the Mobility Service and the

Murcia 377.900
local police
 Servei Català de Trànsit (Traffic
Valencia 761.800 Administration responsible in
the Catalan Autonomous
Community)
Barcelona 1.527.000
 Guardia Urbana de Barcelona
(Urban Guard of Barcelona)
0

250.000

500.000

750.000

1.000.000

1.250.000

1.500.000

1.750.000

 Local police of Elche

 Local police of Castellón
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 Participants in the “survey study”
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 20 EU Countries
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 European Workshop
Objectives
 Present the main
results of the project.
 Interchange experiences.
 Propose advices and
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best practices to
spread at the EU level:
 Urban/local Polices.
 Municipality
RS authorities.
 Regional/National
RS authorities.
Participants
 12 EU Countries.
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 The guide of best practices
 Is mainly based on:
 A compilation of detected “best
practices”.
 The exchange of experiences between
several EU municipalities.
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 The practical pilot experiences applied

in several Spanish cities.
 Several adapted recommendations from
the European Statistics Code of Practice.
 To contribute to the development of local
tools:
 More reliable and accurate knowledge,
to the accident rate problems in each
municipality.
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 Index of the guide of best practices
1. Institutional context.
2. Adequacy and homogenization of the collection criterions.
3. Improvement in data entry procedures.
4. Improvement of data collection questionnaire.
5. Improvements in the computer system for data
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management and analysis.

6. Use of new technologies and introduction of the GIS.
7. Integration of the information through the linkage of
several data sources
8. Training to the technical staff at any stages.
9. Data quality control.
10. Analysis and statistical production processes.
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 1. Institutional context
 Urban Accident Analysis Systems
 Urban Safety Management systems
 Urban Mobility Management.
 Collaboration of specialists and
professionals.
 Information exchange between
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agents, other municipalities and

regional/central and European
administrations.
 Standardizing and homogenising
procedures  optimizing local practices.
 It is important:
 Participation at European level for
establish recommendations.
 Events for experience exchange
between urban polices
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 2. Collection criterions
 The standardization and
homogenisation  comparisons at
different levels and clarify an
effectively use.
 Objective tools to detect and
transfer the information.
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 Also standardize the procedures to

obtain the information, to the
homogeneous understanding.
 Recommendations of specialists in
accident data collection and
processing.
 Manuals and training for the police
forces must be developed, regarding
the EU standardization
recommendations.
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 3. Data entry procedures
 Improving the field work of the police:
Appropriate quantity of information
 wide benefits.
 The TA investigation, reconstruction
and legal-administrative management
procedure, being synchronised with the
statistical practices.
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 Monitoring the evolution of victims at

30 days. It is much easier if carried out
locally.
 Increase the motivation of the police:
Taking part in the design of the
data collection system.
Giving them feedback of statistical
results.
Participating in the intervention
suggestions to improve the road
safety.

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 4. Collection questionnaire
 Standardized collection protocol specifically designed for the urban areas.
 The questionnaire has to be simple, easy, fast to fill out.
 Information entered electronically, avoiding the task duplication.
 Specific fields in relation with urban elements, accident types and
urban context.
 Content manuals should exist to describe the criterions to fill out.
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 Information about the sequence of accident evens to define the

accident type.
 Systematic and periodic reviews.

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 5. Computer systems
 Local or remote access .

 Integrate all the procedures.

 Computerize the
documentation.
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 Automatic queries and

statistics.
 Flexible system.

 Adaptable to future.

 Information in short periods

of time.

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 6. New technologies and the GIS systems

 Expert or interactive system:

 Less missing data, errors, inconsistencies, time…
 Geographical Information Systems.
 “In situ” accident data collection with PDA or laptop.
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 Text, pictures, videos, sketches, maps, etc.

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 7. Integration of the information
 Internal linking mechanisms with other databases available in the police
information system (only for statistical purposes):
 Traffic (density,
volume…)
 Infrastructures
(characteristics, signs…)
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 Vehicles (vehicle records)

 Involved persons
(offence or complaint
records, driving licence
records…), etc.
 Unique identifier fields 
allow the linkage with
external databases of the
health system.

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 8. Training
 Courses or training interventions in
the police action programmes:
 Accident investigation.
 Information obtaining and coding
 Motivational and psychological
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aspects.
 Basic statistical and reporting

 Adapting continuous training to the

new conditions, technologies,
methods and procedures.

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 9. Quality control
 Optimized entry
and management.
 Less information
but reliable.
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 Training and
incentive
programmes.
 Analyses of missing
data and the
errors.

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 10. Analysis and production of statistics
 Specialized tools, procedures and
knowledge, adapted to its
characteristics.
 Risk exposure indicators to
compare the information.
 Other mechanisms of analysis of
the accident rate patterns when
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exposure data are not available:

 Spatial analysis.
 GIS complementation.
 Interventions studies (before-after
or prospective).
 Public reports or statistical
documents.
 Periodic statistics with as little
delay as possible.

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 Finally…
 We need to pay more attention to:
 Specificity of urban traffic accidents.
 Quality of traffic accident information and data in urban
zones.
 Not only the information should be standardized but
also the procedures to obtain it.
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 The role, training and motivation of urban polices.

 We should do or impulse:
 European studies about the current reality of urban
traffic accident data quality.
 An European manual for the urban polices.
 European guidelines for training and helping the urban
policemen.
 New developments in database and statistical tools and
procedures.
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Thank you for your attention!

More information and the project reports in:

www.uv.es/sau