The project ASTERYX aims at Assessing The European Road SafetY Problem – by way of an eXploitation study of the CARE Database (Community Database on Accidents on Roads in Europe). A consortium of four European road safety research institutes carried out– for the first time – detailed Trans-European accident research using the CARE database of the European Commission (DG TREN). The project considers the following issues: * Analyse capabilities and limitations of CARE and its overall potential added value for the road safety research community; * Evaluate user guidance and handling of CARE-II, i.e. the version of the CARE database currently in operation (aspects of user interface, help functions and glossaries); * Highlight possible flaws by misinterpreting or misuse of data, especially when comparing data from different Member States and give recommendations for further development of CARE-II; * Give hands-on advice and examples in the use of CARE; and * Detect some Member States’ specific characteristics in accident patterns, using the list of variables made available in the EU project CARE PLUS, funded by the European Commission. The ASTERYX project commenced in September 2000 and was finalised in October 2003. The research institutes involved were: * KfV Kuratorium für Verkehrssicherheit (Austrian Road Safety Board); Austria (project coordinator) * SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, The Netherlands * CETE Centre d’Etudes Techniques de l’Equipment du Sud-Ouest; France * DfT Department for Transport; United Kingdom. The project was kindly supported by the European Commission – DG TREN. For many years, Trans-European Road Safety Research faced a significant limitation, namely the poor availability and comparability of accident data. Definitions and terms in accident statistics used by the Member States are as such incomparable, specifically as regards their national database variable definitions and their values. The creation of the CARE database by the European Commission, which started in 1993, constituted a major step towards facilitating comparative Road Safety work at a global European scale as well as towards sound decision making in European transport politics. After seven years of developing the CARE system, the Commission agreed in 2000 to support an exploitation study of the database, to be carried out by independent road safety institutions in the Member States. The aim of this study is thus to assess the current value of CARE to the research community and to identify future directions of development. The ASTERYX report considers four major issues: comparison with other international databases, carrying out research case studies, analysing usability issues, and creating a CARE user manual. A comparative analysis of international online databases was carried out, concerning data content, data availability, database access methods and data sources (and validation). Each of the ASTERYX partners organisations carried out several road safety research case studies by making use of the CARE database – and potentially other national or international databases, where necessary. This was found to the most adequate exercise for identifying the current value of CARE to the research community and to detect potential problems as well as needs for further development. The ASTERYX partners analysed in detail the design of the CARE user interface and potential problems in connection with data availability, handling and interpretation as well as with system availability and stability. The setting up of technical access to the CARE database, the production of sound database queries and correct interpretation of query results require comprehensive knowledge that was not available prior the ASTERYX project. It was thus decided by the ASTERYX team to produce a user manual in order to deal with these issues. (Author/publisher) For the other ASTERYX reports see http://ec.europa.eu/transport/roadsafety/publications/projectfiles/aste…
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