GIS-BASED ROAD ACCIDENT ANALYSIS FOR SAFETY PLANNING: PROSPECTS AND PRACTICAL ISSUES

To arrive at a satisfactory level of road safety improvements, it needs to dig down to get the underlying facts and causes through comprehensive analysis of the previous accident record and trends. To understand the present and to plan the future, one has to learn from the past. It is analysis that makes it possible to identify the real problems and to select the best suited countermeasures. Further, analysis is the basis to explore the way for conducting research and investigation, to design strategy for long term planning and evaluating impact of safety measures. In recent years there are overwhelming research findings supporting the idea that GIS plays a vital role in accident analysis aimed at enhancing road safety planning. Road traffic accidents are unintentional events. Unintentional events show uniqueness and possess different characteristics and attributes varying with time and space. When the events are not consistent over time, space and characteristics, its analysis becomes complex, tedious and time consuming. With the advent of GIS and other supporting tools and technologies, road accident analysis and interpretation work have been greatly enhanced. In the recent years its application possibility has been well acknowledged that supports planning of all four types of safety measures - engineering, enforcement, education and emergency response. This thesis presents how GIS can facilitate road accident data analysis work and tries to examine the prospects of GIS-based analysis for road safety planning with the perspectives from the both high and low income countries. Consultation with various GIS expertise and visiting some organisations working with traffic safety GIS, the student here attempts to view GIS-based accident analysis more closely and precisely. It does not focus on the problems or issues of any particular area or locality but explains GIS-based accident analysis and database preparation in a general way. Along with illustrations from Sweden, the North and the South American countries, GIS-based road accident analysis for safety planning has been elaborated from different aspects, constraints of application have been summarised and the future application possibilities have been analysed.(A)