Application Series 10 Application Series 10
To keep up-to-date with the continually changing world of computer technology, the Road Safety Bureau is always reviewing its systems. It was on one of these occasions that the decision was made to produce a PC based traffic accident system to be distributed to all the RTA regions within NSW and provide direct access to road safety officers. This system, called PC CRASH, was developed by SIR for the RSB and provides a user friendly and powerful system directly to the road safety officers hands.
It provides data on the general location of the crash, weather conditions, date and time of crash, severity, geographical features of the location such as speed limit and road type, objects hit and unusual circumstances that might effect the accident.
Details stored on the vehicle involved include make, type, age and mechanical condition. Driver details such as age, experience and alcohol involvement are also stored, as well as details of any person injured in the crash.
The locations of accident blackspot sites are included in the system. This means that groups of accident blackspots can easily be selected and analysed in conjunction with any other data available in the full accident data system.
These details are stored in a relational database system to ensure that all the relationships within the accident are preserved. They can be updated at any time from the RTA's main computer, which stores this information for the whole state.
These are all available from selection menus, with intuitive structure, easy to follow instructions and context sensitive on-line help. So no understanding of the computer system is required to produce the output.
The road safety officer can make his own query and define his own output if none of the standard outputs is what he wants. Point-and-shoot methods are also used for the design of these queries and generation of the resulting output.
The ease of use of PC CRASH and the ability for a road safety officer to manipulate his own data means that he can use exploratory analysis and "what if" procedures to identify and address road safety problems which might not otherwise have come to light. The officer can try alternative methods of output or alternative selection criteria if his first choice does not give him the results he expected.
The only thing the road safety officer has to understand is his road safety principals and techniques. The underlying computer system that is housing his data is completely transparent to him. So his expertise is being used to its best effect.
Although this system has been designed for PC systems, and runs under DOS and windows, it can be ported to any of the other platforms that SIR runs on including UNIX and OpenVMS systems. This gives RSB a range of alternative hardware options so they are never locked into a particular direction, which is particularly important in these days of swiftly changing technologies.
For further information about RSB's use of SIR and PC CRASH please contact:
Heather Goldsmith,
SIR Pty Ltd,
10-18 Cliff Street,
Milsons Point NSW 2061 AUSTRALIA