An Integrated Information System for Road Traffic Accidents

Abstract

Road traffic accidents come at a high price: 1.25 million road traffic deaths occurred globally in 2013. As the road network and the environmental conditions contribute significantly in the cause of accidents, it is crucial to understand where and when they occur, in order to plan actions for road safety improvement. For this reason, the Region of the North Aegean, Greece, in collaboration with the University of the Aegean, has established a spatial database and a web-based geographic information system (webGIS) for the registration, storage, visualization and analysis of the traffic accidents occurred in its jurisdiction. In this article, besides the development and operation of the system, the authors present a spatio-temporal analysis of the data collected since 2004 for the island of Lesvos. Hot spots and risky periods were identified, leading to useful conclusions and directions for road safety improvements.