Development of a geographic information system (GIS) to identify potential high collision locations in major cities in Saskatchewan

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The five most recent years' collision data from Saskatchewan (2004-08) show that collisions per 100K registered vehicles have increased by 9%, and collisions per 100K population have increased by 16%. In 2009 alone, 156 fatalities, 6,369 injuries and 46,429 property damage only collisions were reported to SGI. Saskatchewan has the highest number of fatalities per 100K licensed drivers, and the second highest number of fatalities per 100K population in Canada. To reduce the number of collisions and casualties, the procedures outlined in the Highway Safety Manual are being applied to aid the safety network screening process. The process involves the creation of Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) which can be used to predict the number of future collisions at any particular segment and intersection. SGI, the road safety authority in Saskatchewan, can use the SPFs in the network screening process to identify locations where safety improvements, such as red light cameras, can be installed to proactively reduce the number of preventable collisions. The HSM's base SPFs may be useful for identifying high risk locations Saskatchewan's cities, but as the SPFs were developed using collision and traffic volume data from other jurisdictions, they may not accurately model the level of safety in Saskatchewan. A further limitation is that SPFs cannot be used to screen a road network that does not have traffic volume information. For instance, SPFs cannot be used as a network screening tool for Saskatchewan's local streets as traffic volume data are not available for these streets. The objectives of the proposed research include: i) Develop a series of SPFs for the urban intersections and road segments by road configuration and collision severity for the major cities of Saskatchewan; ii) Compare the performance of the SPFs developed using Saskatchewan collision and traffic volume data to the performance of the HSM's base SPFs; iii) Test and select an alternative network screening method, such as a high proportion network screening method, that can be applied to streets that lack traffic volume input; and iv) Develop a GIS that analyses spatial collision patterns and visualizes the locations identified as having the potential for safety improvements.