Urban traffic accident data collection and analysis in Europe: Current state. Survey study.

The reduction of the number of road accident fatalities by 50 %, by the year 2010, suggested by the EU, involves the active contribution of all the agents in charge of the road safety in Europe. Even though the accidents that happened in urban areas have a relative smaller severity, it is the place where, for the moment, in absolute terms, the major number of accidents take place in the EU countries, as well as generating serious consequences on the more vulnerable users (pedestrians, cyclists, children, the elderly…). The current SAU action has as main objective to obtain an approximation of the characteristics of the current accident collection and analysis systems through the application and the study of a survey made to a sample of European cities. This survey represents the starting point to raise and be able to develop and reach a consensus on more appropriate improvement strategies that will improve the current working procedures and optimize the available means for the information record on urban accident rate. In this project, a specific and detailed study of the urban accident collection and analysis system has been carried out with the aim of knowing its characteristics and high heterogeneity. As it has already been specified in studies carried out in other countries, it has been confirmed that there are significant problems of quality in the accident data that are precisely collected through questionnaires filled in by the police bodies in charge of the traffic accident management. The survey study has been considered as essential to have a more reliable and accurate knowledge on the issue of the urban accident rate (already fixed before), and with it, being able to pose appropriate recommendations and “good practices” in relation to the collection system implementation/improvement, as well as to the urban traffic accident analysis and monitoring, which might give answers and solutions and contribute to the development of local tools. Prior to the development of the European survey, the DGT (Traffic General Directorate) showed a particular interest in this survey study, given that it considered as being fundamental to have a complete vision on the state in Spain, due to the short term forecast to completely reform the Spanish traffic accident collection system. The appropriate integration of the urban data is one of the most critical aspects of this reform