Ky Office of Highway Safety, Crash Data Integration

This project will be to develop a team comprised of crash users, police that enter crash data, roadway database users, roadway database maintainers, and developers of the KYOPS system. This team will meet and a facilitated discussion will help identify issues related to data entry or data use. It is our understanding that there is a disconnect between data users and data creators. For example, the vehicle direction of travel can be useful to researchers to determine the type of crash that occurred at an intersection. However, there seems to be an inconsistency on how this information is coded (before or after a turn) that makes this analysis difficult to complete. In some locations, it appears that crashes are being coded to the wrong milepoints of roadways even though officers are selecting the correct location in the crash reporting software. Errors such as these make integrating data to other sources impossible or cause incorrect connections between databases. Many issues like these have been identified through other research efforts (Contributing Factors study, Crash Accuracy study, Secondary Crash identification); although it is difficult to propose solutions to these complex issues without a multi-disciplinary group that understands the many aspects of the crash and roadway data.