Title: A Cost-Effective GIS Safety Analysis Tool for Improving Highway Safety

Abstract: The safety of highway travel in Florida is of paramount concern to the state authorities responsible for managing the highway system. The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering has developed a cost effective, user-friendly GIS-based safety analysis tool for law enforcement officers in Florida using MapObjects 2.2 development kit. The tool allows automatic creation of crash shapefiles using two crash location methods i.e., GPS coordinates and street information. The tool performs numerous crash analyses and creates crash maps by querying information from TraCS (Traffic Criminal Software) database. The tool was customized to allow law enforcement officers to perform numerous spatial analyses by integrating TraCS database with other spatial databases to obtain hazardous crash location in their jurisdiction and undertake appropriate measures. Through user-friendly interface, law enforcement officers and transportation officials could perform numerous analyses and produce maps that can be used for safety improvement programs in their jurisdictions