Project
Police and municipality do not have an overview of minor traffic accidents, since they are not reported. But in colaboration with NIRAS they get an overview.
A collaboration between emergency rooms and municipalities is focussed on recording the where and how of traffic accidents suffered by emergency room patients. By this means the police and the municipalities gain access to new knowledge, which they can use to target efforts to improve road safety. With the help of a digital map system in which the accidents are registered, the police and the municipalities get a unique overview of the accidents.
Accidents are registered when a person reports to the emergency department and speaks to a nurse. The nurse notes where and how the accident occurred and what the conditions were. The accidents are subsequently registered in the digital map system 'KortInfo', which NIRAS has developed.
The fact that the accidents are registered on a digital map means that the municipalities and the police can easily see where the accidents happen. In this way, the database makes it easier to identify areas with a particularly high number of accidents. By clicking on a specific accident location on the map, the police and municipalities can quickly find information about specific accidents.
When the emergency rooms registers an accident, it is based on the Road Directorate's model for what information must be obtained about the accident. Among other things, whether the accident happened in daylight or twilight is recorded. Also, whether the road surface was smooth or dry, and whether the accident occurred at an intersection or a roundabout. In this way, the police, the municipalities and the Road Directorate get a detailed and uniform knowledge of the individual accidents.
The police also use the Road Directorate's model when they register accidents. This makes it possible for data to be analysed across police information from reported accidents and the new data from the emergency rooms.
An investigation from 2017 carried out over 60 days in Southern Jutland showed there were 157 people injured in traffic of which 102 were not reported to the police.
Aarhus Municipality is one of the places that has benefited greatly from emergency room data. The municipality found out via data that accidents on bicycles are primarily due to incorrect behaviour and bicycle failures. The municipality therefore chose to focus on safety campaigns and awareness-raising measures on the cycle paths instead of changing the design of the paths or moving kerbstones. Among other things, the municipality placed rumbling strips on the cycle paths. The rumble strips are mainly located close to junctions. When cyclists ride over the rumble strips their bikes start to shake, and they are alerted to the need to slow down and orient themselves to the intersection ahead. Through the project the municipality gained a better basis for targeting their efforts to improve road safety.
15 municipalities and six emergency rooms are currently part of the project, which is run in collaboration between the municipalities, the police and NIRAS.
