Development of the Oregon Traffic Safety Data Archive: Phases 1 and 2

Abstract

This report describes the preliminary work to develop the Oregon Traffic Safety Data Archive (OrTSDA). The mission of OrTSDA is to "build the knowledge base of traffic safety data in Oregon". The archive hopes to become a valuable traffic safety data resource with researchers, practitioners, and community supporters. As envisioned, the archive will provide current and historical versions of related data, encompass complete documentation, and contain an online interface to the variety of traffic safety related data. Working with partner state agencies, the archive contains reported motor vehicle crashes statewide, population data, estimates of vehicle miles traveled, traffic crime, and information on driving under the influence measures. These data have been loaded in an online web-based archive for users to query and analyze. The archive produces safety performance metrics for statewide, county and city aggregations. Users can also access a set of pre-built queries which they can filter for crash type, month, time, and severity. Experienced users are given a one-step feature to obtain raw crash data. One key feature of the archive is a Google-map based tool that allows users to select crash data for analysis by drawing a selection boundary on the map. The report also includes a brief review of other online highway safety data portals. This review highlights that interactive crash portals are restricted to a handful of states agencies or research university partners.