The importance of exposure data for a comprehensive accident database

Abstract

Paper presented at the 30th Annual Southern African Transport Conference 11-14 July 2011 "Africa on the Move", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

This research paper was undertaken to investigate the importance of exposure data and how it can be used with existing accident databases. It is hoped that greater awareness on this topic will be created. It is the aim of this paper to highlight the importance of exposure data as well as using it with other dimensions of road safety (i.e. consequences and risk) described in the paper, in order to arrive at a comprehensive accident database. Exposure in terms of vehicle.km is not always reliable and the move towards person.km is promoted in this paper. (Vehicle.km's looks at the vehicle only, whereas person.km's looks at all road users i.e. pedestrian, drivers, passengers) The paper will also show the use of a formula that uses cross-multiplying and dividing of dimensions that expresses the road safety problem better. It further shows the use of three (3) dimensional graphs in presenting the exposure, risk and consequences simultaneously. This method can be used for different road users and age groups with examples and a case study which is included. It also highlights the fact that road traffic safety is a multi-dimensional multidisciplinary science that focusing on one dimension will not solve the problem. Haddon's Matrix is therefore also used to show that the three dimensions (consequences, exposure and risk) can be used to arrive at remedial measures for road safety in conjunction with the three dimensional graphs. In conclusion, it shows that various data sources are available in the country but not always integrated with one another, hence the need for a comprehensive accident database with exposure data forming a vital component.