GeoTAIS: An Application of Spatial Analysis for Traffic Safety Improvements on Provincial Highways in Saskatchewan
Annual Conference of the Transportation Association of Canada, 2011
Brandt Denham, George Eguakun, and Kwei Quaye
“Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) is responsible for collecting and maintaining a comprehensive database of traffic accidents. This data is used by SGI and other safety partners for monitoring, decision making and the evaluation of traffic safety program initiatives in Saskatchewan. The GeoTAIS project was launched in July of 2010 in an effort to enhance the quality of Saskatchewan’s traffic accident database to keep up with cutting edge traffic safety analysis/research and to facilitate the provision of well informed traffic safety programs in Saskatchewan.
Actual Wildlife Accident Locations on Highway 16, Control Section 24
“The overarching goal of the project is to develop a Geographic Information System (GIS) that would allow for the visual representation of the traffic accident data captured in the SGI’s Traffic Accident Information System (TAIS) and SGI’s claims information systems in a spatial format. The second goal of the project is to deploy guidelines from the recently published AASHTO Highway Safety Manual combined with the spatial data from GeoTAIS to develop Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) for all provincial highways in Saskatchewan. The final goal of the project is to utilize the spatial data, SPFs and the Empirical Bayes (EB) method to visually identify collision hotspots and areas in the provincial road network with high potential for safety improvements. The success of the project will help ensure that traffic safety problem identification, investments, monitoring, and program evaluation in Saskatchewan are informed by the best data in a speedy and efficient manner. This paper discusses the development of the GeoTAIS project and its application in identifying hazardous wildlife crash locations as part of the ongoing efforts to improve traffic safety on Saskatchewan’s provincial highways.”
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