Use of open street map for accident investigation on the road and motorways networks

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to provide new methods and indicators for road accidents analysis. Traditionally, the road accidents, mortality and harmfulness rates use, as standard denominators, the resident population or vehicles fleet. These measures are not always adequate to rank correctly the exposure to risk of accidents; due to neither the resident population nor the registered vehicles represent correctly the traffic units circulating on the roads. The present research proposes a new approach to the traditional measures, using the length in meters of carriageway by road direction from the Open Street Map, adding the information on the Points of Traffic too. Although the product represents an intermediate result and provides a new ranking of the road accidents risks, the final purpose is to expand the statistical information with the supply of traffic flows (vehicles/km) on the national road network, as widely used in literature, but still missing in Italy.