Enhancing the Documentation Process of Traffic Accidents Registry in Gaza City Using GIS

Abstract

Gaza City is the largest city in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian territories. The city has a population about 700,000 inhabitants with an average population density of 12600 person/km2. Documentation procedure of traffic accidents in the city is traditional and inefficient. It is not only based on paper formatting but also is not performed in the correct way since it misses the determination of exact position of occurrence of these accidents. Furthermore, documentation data do not involve appropriate level of details and need to be re-organized. This study aims to enhance the documentation process of the traffic accidents in Gaza City using GIS as well as developing appropriate recommendations that can raise the level of traffic safety in it. To enhance the documentation, a new mobile and desktop applications based on GIS Cloud are developed in order to automatically store spatial and descriptive data about traffic accidents in a computerized geodatabase. Many analysis using GIS of the accidents statistics of 2019 are performed. Results indicate that the hot neighborhood in the city is Northern Remal, the hot road is Salah Al-Din Str., the hot period is 12 – 14 O'clock, most accidents are caused by cars, and medium injuries are the dominant of these accidents. The study recommends to build a digital geodatabase that involves all necessary data associated with traffic accidents because it is the basis for planning, analyzing and making decisions. It is also recommended to establish a GIS department in Ministry of Transportation. There is a strong need to legislate binding laws to prevent the increase in the number of traffic accidents in addition to make field actions such as the necessity to set up traffic lights as much as possible near health centers, schools and other public places. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33976/JERT.8.1/2021/2