Enhancing Road Safety with Vianova: Analyzing Massachusetts Crash Data

Leveraging Data for Safer Roads

Vianova works with a number of data providers across the world to help cities get access to unique data products built off of data from connected cars, buses, trucks, bikes, and people. But sometimes the first objective is simply to better use the data already available to public agencies. It’s especially important that the data is visible and accessible to the planners and project managers doing the work, even if they are not expert data scientists or geospatial engineers. The Vianova Intelligence Platform tool offers an innovative solution to make crash data more intuitive and actionable. Let’s dive into the VIP’s “Bring Your Own Data” interface to see how data can be more easily explored using the features.

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Making Data Intuitive

One of the main challenges in road safety analysis is making complex data sets easy to understand, especially if they are coming from different sources. Vianova tackles this by providing an intuitive visual platform that lets the user bring multiple different sources of data together. As long as there is some sort of geospatial element- a set of coordinates, a geographic boundary, a line segment, etc.- it is possible to visualize and interact with the data within the VIP. This allows users to quickly see the spatial relationships between collision data and other socio-economic indicators like population density, income levels, and racial or ethnic makeup.

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Methodology

To conduct this analysis, we uploaded crash data from the MassDOT Crash Data Portal into the Vianova platform. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) is an innovative, data-driven organisation that uses advanced analytics and performance management to enhance transportation services. The Office of Performance Management and Innovation (OPMI) tracks key metrics, such as road conditions and transit punctuality, to ensure continuous improvement. Additionally, its collaboration with the Massachusetts Data Office promotes data sharing and standardisation across state agencies, fostering informed decision-making​.

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Their data portal contains a wealth of information about collisions, including factors such as location, time of day, weather conditions, road conditions, vehicle types involved, crash severity and contributing causes like driver behaviour or vulnerable user presence. The platform makes exporting data easy, however, it can be somewhat difficult to navigate for first time users.

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Additionally, we integrated environmental justice zones data from MassGIS Data: 2020 Environmental Justice Populations sourced directly from the mass.gov website. The environmental Justice (EJ) zones in Massachusetts are defined based on demographic criteria: areas where the median household income is 65% or less of the state median, minority populations are 40% or more, or 25% of households lack English proficiency. Incorporating EJ zones into road safety analyses may help with addressing disparities in infrastructure and ensure equitable resource allocation, as these communities often face greater environmental and health risks​.

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The data was uploaded to the Vianova platform. Filters and visualisation settings were configured to tailor the data presentation to specific analytical needs. This setup included categorising crashes by factors such as road surface conditions and visibility of traffic control devices.

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We additionally created multiple reports in order to visualise the datasets more clearly. The Vianova Query Builder allows users to interact with data in a fast and simple manner, it allows to create insight-oriented reports and pull out only the necessary information from large datasets.

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For example, a user could quickly query and visualise what proportion of crashes across the entire state, happened in the area of the environmental justice zones:

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Key Insights from the Analysis

The analysis revealed a strong spatial link between collisions involving vulnerable road users and EJ zones. Out of all crashes registered in 2021, 88% happened in the area of EJ zones. There was an especially strong correlation between crashes caused by worn road surfaces, malfunctioning or obscured traffic control devices, and areas identified as environmental justice zones. All crashes linked to one of these two causes happened in the area identified as EJ zones. These findings highlight the compounded risks in communities already dealing with socio-economic disadvantages.

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Understanding the Impact of Socio-Demographic Factors

• Population Density: Higher collision rates with at least one vulnerable road user involved were found in densely populated areas, marked as environmental justice zones, where the concentration of road users increases the likelihood of accidents.

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• Income Levels: Low-income neighbourhoods experienced more collisions, likely due to poorer infrastructure and less effective road maintenance. When looking only at incidents where there was a road contributing circumstance, 68% of such crashes happened within the EJ zone boundaries. On top of that, all incidents linked to worn road surface or inoperative traffic control device took place in the EJ zones. 

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• Racial and Ethnic Composition: Minority communities are disproportionately affected by road safety issues. This underscores the need for equitable infrastructure investments and targeted safety interventions.

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Conclusion

The Vianova Intelligence Platform is designed to support analysis not only of Vianova’s data products, such as those with information about vehicle speeding or heavy braking, but also faster and simplified analysis of existing data sources. In a diverse government such as a city or state, data sources are often siloed and it can be difficult to see the correlations between them. 

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Vianova’s platform simplifies access to the insights of this data. Data from two different sources can be uploaded quickly and very clear patterns can emerge without the need of GIS or data science tooling. The experience, built off of the feedback of policymakers around the world, is meant to democratize access to these insights.  

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Vianova Advisory Professional Services:

This study aims to demonstrate the capabilities of the Vianova platform and illustrate its application in real-world contexts. By integrating real elements, we simulate different stages of a potential collaboration with local governments. However, this analysis is independently conducted by Vianova.

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This road safety tool described here was developed as part of Vianova's Professional Services offering which leverages extensive data analytics, software and industry expertise to support evidence-based mobility decision-making. 

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