978-1-906638-72-6

Georeferencing Road Accidents with GoogleEarth

article

2010-12-21T18:34:43Z
2010-12-21T18:34:43Z
2010

Academic Publishing Limited

Ferreira, João

Road Accidents
KML
Georeference
GoogleEarth
Geographical Information System

Over the last fifty years we’ve watched tremendous changes in mobility habits. Culture, economy and technology built a new society where accessibility, networks, transportation and its means, have altered the way we live and move. In the beginning, the car was a luxury object, but over the last fifty years it became an essential asset of modern societies. This sudden change had many consequences over society but mortality caused by traffic accidents was probably the worst of them. Mortality rates reached untenable numbers for modern societies and in this context a lot of studies, projects and campaigns have been carried out in order to minimize the problems and maximize solutions. In Portugal the local authority with responsibilities on traffic accidents, safety and prevention (Lisbon Civil Government) has developed a project for mapping and georeferencing all the accidents within the limits of Lisbon District, area of its territorial authority. The data gathered and analysed (referred to the year of 2007) considered only the accidents involving death and serious injured persons. This option was taken in order to analyse places and locations where accidents had dangerous consequences to people revealing at the same time its real causes (human failure, mechanical failure or technical/construction error). Information based on the Road Accident Statistical Bulletin and filled on location by the two Local Police Authorities, Public Safety Police (Polícia de Segurança Pública - PSP), local police within the city limits and Republican National Guard (Guarda Nacional Republicana – GNR), the police authority outside the city limits was the main statistical source. Information can be important to analyze different phenomena but when used with spatial reference like a coordinate system it becomes even more important. To the authorities the use of recent statistical data is crucial when it comes to the development of strategies to overcome a serious problem like traffic accidents. To the citizen, information is also critical to recognize the problem and to minimize road mortality rates with different attitudes and behaviors. With the use of geographical information systems (GIS) and its georeferencing tools, statistical data and a geobrowser like Google Earth it is possible to create a methodology where the diffusion of information becomes a crucial element to find better solutions to the problem. The results can be achieved trough better road safety measures, by adjusting prevention campaigns to regional and local necessities or by modelling future sceneries. So, the objectives of this paper are: (i) Analyze the use of GIS georeferenced tools to show detailed information about traffic accidents; (ii) Understand the use of information as a crucial element to the study of traffic accidents and to the perception of the phenomena; (iii) Develop a user-friendly interface in KML language to visualize traffic accidents trough GoogleEarth; (iv) Analyze the benefits of information diffusion at a global scale as an instrument for prevention of traffic accidents; (v) Observe that information is a weapon of mass citizen sensitization.

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