Making Traffic Safety Personal: Visualization and Customization of National Traffic Fatalities
Making Traffic Safety Personal: Visualization and Customization of National Traffic Fatalities
Making Traffic Safety Personal: Visualization and Customization of National Traffic Fatalities
Abstract. Communicating public health issues related to rural and urban road
transportation safety is a challenging task. The approach to this task was to
utilize an action-design research methodology to design and evaluate several
innovative GIS-mashups that visually communicate traffic fatality information
from the national to the local level. These web-based mashups
(www.saferoadmaps.org) integrate a range of spatial data regarding motor
vehicle crashes, transportation policy legislation, and driver behavioral data and
present a visual representation of traffic safety across the United States. It was
anticipated that these mashups, and related website, would help raise awareness
and change fundamental perceptions regarding the magnitude, risk factors, and
impacts of motor vehicle crashes and bring both increased safety and awareness
to transportation policy makers and private citizens. Preliminary findings from
around the world suggest that there is a strong interest in this type of
information, particularly as users can customize it to local queries.
1 Introduction
Road traffic injuries are a major but neglected public health challenge that requires
concerted efforts for effective and sustainable prevention [1]. In the United States,
the total economic cost of motor vehicle crashes is estimated to be 2 percent of Gross
Domestic Product [1, 2], or approximately $275 billion for 2007. Medical and
emergency services costs are roughly 15 percent of this total.
In 2007, in the United States, there were 41,059 fatalities; the result of 37,248
motor vehicle crashes – roughly 60 percent of these motor vehicle crashes occurred
on rural, two-lane roads. Moreover, these crash victims are five to seven times more
likely to die if arrival to a hospital exceeds 30 minutes. The average time between a
crash and hospital arrival is 52 minutes in rural areas [3].
Clearly, there is an urgent need for governmental agencies, and other key
institutions, to increase and sustain action to prevent motor vehicle injuries. Yet,
while there is widespread use of visual-consumer systems for traffic congestion (both
online and by media outlets such as local television stations), there has been very little
if any attention to using such systems for traffic safety. The policy need is clearly
present, as recent U.S. federal transportation legislation (Safe, Accountable, Flexible,
and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU))
mandates that the pubic must be involved in the creation of a Transportation
Improvement Program during both the planning and programming phases [4, 5].
At a general level, there is widespread acknowledgement to how public
participation geographic information systems (PP-GIS) can be used to broaden public
involvement in policymaking as well as to the value of GIS to promote the goals of
non-governmental organizations, grassroots groups, and community-based
organizations [6]. PP-GIS helps to empower these groups, as well as others, through
the use of various spatial and visual technologies to increase awareness and
participation in decision-making processes. As such, PP-GIS provides a unique
approach for engaging the public in decision-making through its goal to incorporate
local knowledge, integrate and contextualize complex spatial information, allow
participants to dynamically interact with input, analyze alternatives, and empower
individuals and groups [6].
Accordingly, this paper reports on the development and utilization of several
innovative GIS-mashups that visually communicate traffic fatality information from
the national to the local level. These web-based mashups (www.saferoadmaps.org)
integrate a range of spatial data regarding motor vehicle crashes, transportation policy
legislation, and driver behavioral data and present a visual representation of traffic
safety across the United States. To that end, it is expected that these GIS-based
mashups will be utilized in a variety of settings to:
Thus, it was anticipated that these mashups, and related website, would help raise
awareness and change fundamental perceptions regarding the magnitude, risk factors,
and impacts of motor vehicle crashes and bring both increased safety and awareness
to transportation policy makers and private citizens. As will be noted below, the
overwhelming success of the launch of the SafeRoadMaps website on 28 July 2008,
and utilization thereafter, suggests that there is a strong demand for this type of visual
information.
2 SafeRoadMaps Development
• Map – visually display spatial data for analysis and decision support
• Safety Policy – map layers indicating areas of legislative policies
• Safety Profile – pre-defined queries of fatality events
• Safety Statistics – drill-down (query/filter) through various data sets to
extract the specific information the end-user wants to display
• KML File – download KML files, both static and query-based, for
display in Google Earth (or other KML reader)
These key requirements were identified as part of a larger, ongoing research effort,
of which this website and mashups are a part. In particular, the following themes
were identified as key to communicating public health issues related to rural and
urban road transportation safety:
2.1 Data
The mission of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) is to make vehicle
crash information accessible and useful so that traffic safety can be improved.
Fatality information derived from FARS includes motor vehicle traffic crashes that
result in the death of an occupant of a vehicle or a non-motorist within 30 days of the
crash. FARS contains data on all fatal traffic crashes within the 50 states, the District
of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contracts with an agency in
each state to provide information on fatal crashes [13]. FARS analysts are state
employees who extract the information and enter it into a standard format. Data on
fatal motor vehicle traffic crashes are gathered from each state’s source documents
and are coded on standard FARS forms. Analysts obtain the documents needed to
complete the FARS forms, which generally include the following:
One defining characteristic of Web 2.0 [15] application development is the use of
mashups to integrate content from multiple sources through the use of an Application
Programming Interface (API) or Web Service. Mashups are an exciting genre of
interactive Web applications that draw upon content retrieved from external data
sources to create entirely new and innovative services [16]. From a system
development point-of-view, Web 2.0 brings with it new opportunities for deploying
highly interactive web pages [17] and allows developers to leverage existing
applications without the need to build a system from the “ground-up”.
The website reported on in this paper contains several GIS-based mashups that
were developed utilizing Google’s “Google Maps” API and Microsoft’s “Virtual
Earth” API. Early design discussions identified the need for wide-ranging
functionality and customization, hence, it was decided that the use of a mapping API
would be required rather than a simple developer’s tool.
When utilizing these APIs, developers have access to various predefined functions
that allow them to create their own applications and perform operations on local and
remote data. For example, the Google Maps API is essentially a collection of
JavaScript classes that can be called from a web page in order to build various
elements of an interactive map. As a result, the Google Maps API has encouraged a
very considerable number of users with intermediate and advanced programming
knowledge to build their own applications, using Google Maps data as a visualization
interface [18].
Consequently, as the use of mashups has grown, so has the number of tools to ease
their deployment. These mashup tools generally fall into two groups: those which are
easy to use, but can only create a limited family of mashups; and those which are
relatively difficult to use, but can create a wide range of mashups [19].
Specific to GIS, Google’s “MyMaps”, Microsoft’s “MapCruncher”, and the
recently released GMap Creator tool [18] allow developers to easily create mashups
involving maps. Unfortunately, while each of these tools is easy to use, they provide
limited functionality in terms of application customization. Accordingly, Google,
Microsoft, and Yahoo provide application developers with an API or Software
Development Kit (SDK) (http://code.google.com/apis/maps/,
http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/, http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/, respectively) to
access their mapping products. ESRI, one of the largest GIS technology companies,
provides access to more sophisticated GIS tools through e.g., ArcWeb Services, for
integrating mapping functionality (http://www.esri.com/software/arcwebservices/).
The GIS-based mashups discussed in this paper utilize a mixed-source web
platform – Windows 2003 Server, IIS, MySQL, and PHP (Figure 1). However, these
mashups could have been easily implemented on an open source software platform, or
with minimal effort, on a closed source platform.
Figure 2 also depicts the result of the query – “All Years, California, Rural Road,
Non-Summer, Speeding, Alcohol Involved, No Restraint Used, Driver, Age 17 - 21,
Male”. Here, when the user clicks on one of the traffic fatality location icons, they
are presented with an “Information Bubble” that contains a link to a “drill-down”
query for that specific event.
Figure 3 depicts the result of a drill-down query. The resultant web page contains
general information regarding the event (Number of Fatalities and Date), as well as
specific information for each person involved (SRM_ID, Road Type, Speeding,
Drinking, Restraint Type, Person Type, Age, Sex, and Deceased). This web page also
contains three additional elements: a “zoomed-in” map from Microsoft’s Virtual
Earth map service containing a “Bird’s Eye” view, a “zoomed-in” map from Google’s
map service, and a “Street Level” 360 degree panoramic image also provided by
Google’s map service.
Fig. 3. SafeRoadMaps Mashup – Drill-down Result (Obtained by clicking-on the “Link” or “+”
in the pop-up Info Window).
The second GIS-based mashup, “Safe Street Maps”, also utilizes FARS data, but
rather than make use of ad-hoc queries with filtering, this mashup allows the user to
enter an address and discover all fatalities within a given distance of that address.
This is accomplished utilizing Google’s geocoding engine and a specialized query in
the MySQL database. As with the “Safe State Maps” mashup, the results of a drill-
down query are also available. Figure 4 illustrates the “Safe Street Maps” mashup.
Fig. 4. SafeRoadMaps – Safe Street Maps Mashup (Query result – “130 East Ninth Street,
Claremont, CA” – Search Distance = 2 Miles”).
The launch, on 28 July 2008, of the SafeRoadMaps website was publicly announced
to coincide with the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS) 2008 Summer
Institute. The initial response was overwhelming. During the first three days of its
public debut, the site received over three million hits, had nearly one million page
views, and 126,000 visits from the United States and around the world. This usage
paralleled the media coverage, which included over 150 reports in newspapers,
television news, radio, and related new-media outlets. While usage rates have
subsided from this initial success, continued high attention over the past nine months
(28 July 2008 – 30 April 2009) suggests that there is strong traveler (and analyst)
demand for this type of visual, customizable information (Figures 5 and 6).
Fig. 5. SafeRoadMaps Website Traffic (United States) 28 July 2008 – 30 April 2009.
Fig. 6. SafeRoadMaps Website Traffic (World) 28 July 2008 – 30 April 2009.
Figure 7 illustrates the “Top Dynamic Pages” (most often viewed dynamic web pages
on the server) for the period 28 July 2008 - 30 April 2009. Dynamic web sites
contain content that is stored in a database that is placed on a web page when
requested. This content (text, images, etc.) may change in response to different
contexts or conditions. Some content, though dynamically generated, is more general
and is requested from the database as part of the normal functioning of the web site,
e.g., a “Home Page” and requires no action on the part of the user. Other content,
also dynamically generated, is more customized and is based on the results of a user-
initiated search.
The most dynamic, user-initiated, SafeRoadMaps web page, in terms of “Page
Views”, is the getxml.php page. This page is utilized to query the database and
returns XML data to the “Safe State Maps” display (Figure 2) and contains location
information and pop-up window content. A “Page View” is a successful request for a
file on a web site that is considered to be a page. These are usually files with
extensions such as .asp, .aspx, .php, etc. Views generated as a result of an error are
not counted as actual views for a site, and are kept separate from successful views
[23].
The next most dynamic, user-initiated, web page, excluding the index.php page,
which is the general entry page for all GIS mashups, is the getpersondata.php page.
This page is utilized to query the database in a “drill-down” manner and returns XML
data, as well as specific event data from the Person table (Figure 3). Again, excluding
several general entry pages, the next most dynamic web page, in terms of user-
initiated searches, is the searchlocation.php web page. This page is utilized to query
the database and returns XML data to the “Safe Street Maps” display (Figure 4)
regarding localized searches.
Interestingly, the getkml.php page, which utilizes a user-initiated query to generate
a KML file for display in a geo-browser (e.g., Google Earth or ArcGIS Explorer), was
requested infrequently.
Over the past year, a series of discussions have been held with national safety experts,
government career professionals, and elected officials regarding the consumer value
of SafeRoadMaps. In general, there has been widespread support to the use of
innovative visually based technologies to raise awareness and improve traffic safety.
Interestingly, there was also some initial reservation about how the public would react
to the website (including fears about increasing complaints to local departments of
transportation). These concerns have not been borne out; rather, transportation
professionals have indicated interest in extending the national version of
SafeRoadMaps into localized editions.
SafeRoadMaps (Version 2) is building on its initial success by incorporating
website feedback from users and suggestions from the CERS 2008 Summer Institute
findings, several state Department of Transportation offices, the United States
Department of Transportation Office of the Secretary, the Federal Highway
Administration, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In addition,
SafeRoadMaps (Version 2) will utilize additional Web 2.0 technologies to reach a
wider user and organizational audience. For example, it will include many new basic
and advanced querying capabilities, expanded visual and user interface elements, and
web services access.
Specifically, the following objectives are planned for the upcoming release of
SafeRoadMaps:
It is expected that the new version of SafeRoadMaps will be received with the
same enthusiasm and interest as the initial version. The goal is to become a website
and service of choice for those looking for readily accessible visually based
information and research on traffic safety.
5 Conclusion
Communicating public health issues related to rural and urban road transportation
safety is a challenging task. This paper summarizes the action-design approach taken
to design, launch, and develop a GIS-based visualization system to understand and
improve traffic safety. These mashups integrate a range of spatial data regarding
motor vehicle crashes, transportation policy legislation, and driver behavioral data.
They contain a map to visually display spatial data, several additional map layers
indicating areas of specific legislative policy, and a drill-down capability that allows
end-users to query/filter these data sets to extract information related to specific
fatality events. The ability to dynamically create KML files to display query-based
results, as well as static maps, in Google Earth or similar KML reader is also
available.
As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO), the level of road traffic injury
is unacceptable and is largely avoidable. Furthermore, a reduction in motor vehicle
crashes, and corresponding injuries and fatalities, can be accomplished by:
Acknowledgements
This project was supported by the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety (CERS),
which facilitates citizen-centered research, training, and outreach activities related to
rural transportation safety. CERS is a joint program between the University of
Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs State and Local Policy
Program and the Center for Transportation Studies, and sponsored by the Federal
Highway Administration.
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