A Conceptual Project for the organisation of Road Traffic Crash and Road Traffic Crash Casualty Data acquisition for Research Purposes

Abstract

Objectives. Enhancing police road traffic crash records with road traffic crash related data from other sources is of special importance. One of such sources are data on casualties' harm. However, it is time consuming to collect non-police data on casualties' harm, especially from scattered and structurally heterogeneous data resources. Thus, the objective of the work was to elaborate the concept of an appropriately organised central data acquisition system that refers to road crashes. After implementation, the system could support both road traffic safety research and road traffic safety decision making purposes.Methods. The investigation has been conducted taking into account the need of research on road traffic safety in which information from external road traffic crash casualty data sources and police databases are linked. It enabled drawing the conclusion that record-level road crash casualty data from multiple providers are generally not organised and accessible at a national level. In order to address a possible solution to the problem, in the work a systematic approach was used, in which selected elements of the system analysis were adopted. The component parts (subsystems) of the central data acquisition system and their possible interactions were identified and examined. Then, the system requirements and constraints were discussed.Results. The scheme of the central system has been elaborated, the organisation of which would make the provision of both road crash data from police and road crash casualty data from administratively diverse units possible for any stakeholders. A diagram of the data transfer was described and a selection of key fields for the data integration was proposed. As the whole issue has a country-specific nature, the approach was presented for Polish conditions.Conclusions. Essential aspects of interdisciplinary research problems were identified and investigated with reference to the solution to the problem of how to agilely organise a central system of the data acquisition and the data access for road traffic safety analyses. The approach could initiate similar discussion and activities in other countries.