Analysis of the Effectiveness of the Road-Crash Database in the United Arab Emirates

This study presents an approach to assess the effectiveness of road-crash databases in providing meaningful analysis. The assessment was done for the case of the database system in the United Arab Emirates. The assessment was based on feedback from two groups: one involved crash investigators and database managers, and the second involved other traffic safety experts. A quantitative geographical information system-based data analysis was also included to illustrate some deficiencies in the existing database. The survey of crash investigators and database managers focused on aspects including database utilization, technology for providing data services, methods of data collection, sufficiency of the traffic crash report, difficulties in the traffic crash report, and sufficiency of pedestrian crash data. The experts' survey addressed aspects of difficulties of the traffic crash report and database system, required data for crash analyses, need of in-depth crash data, need for Global Positioning System data, involving a private party in handling the database system, and permissible extent of data sharing. The conducted analyses were used to subjectively quantify the importance and the perceived level of satisfaction of the surveyed aspects. This was then used to propose measures to upgrade the database system and the crash investigation process to overcome the identified deficiencies.