Reviewing police crash reports has been an important but time-consuming process. This report describes an effort to develop a Web-based system, called the Police Crash Report Review System (PCRRS), to facilitate the process of reviewing police crash reports and recording review results. The system was an extension of an in-house system that was previously developed by researchers at Florida International University (FIU) for use in research projects. The aim of the system was to significantly reduce the police crash report review processing time. The extended system includes three component programs serving three different user types: the system administrator, the project managers, and the end users. The system allows the system administrator to manage user accounts for project managers who in turn manage the user accounts for the end users. The project managers can quickly set up the project scope and the target review questions of a project, and assign end user(s) to projects. The end users are provided with a user-friendly interface to review assigned police crash reports and record the review results. As safety analysts are increasingly relying on satellite images from popular commercial maps, the system allows the user to quickly display the crash location on Google Maps, allowing it to be displayed with police crash report side-by-side. As part of the project, a new user account management system was developed to allow the system administrator to manage project manager accounts and the contact person to be notified if an end user finds any issues or errors in the police crash reports. The latter aims to correct mistakes in police crash reports and helps improve data quality in the long run. A second new component program developed allows the project managers to set up projects and assign them to the end users who perform the actual police crash report review and data recording. A project includes the following three major components: 1. Crash period and types of crashes: The system allows a range of “from” and “to” dates to be specified for the analysis period. The resulting crashes can further be filtered by specific crash characteristics such as crash types, crash severity, lighting conditions, etc. 2. Project locations: The system allows the project location(s) to be defined either by specifying linear referenced locations, indicating map locations within a radius, or simply entering the standard crash numbers of pre-identified crashes. 3. Project review questions: The system provides a user-friendly interface to allow the project manager to edit the project to add the target review questions to be answered and recorded by the end users. The project manager can set up questions that are made up of a mix of radio buttons, checkboxes, dropdown lists, and comment boxes. The system will automatically set up a database table for the questions for data recording. After a project is completely set up, the project manager can assign it to the end users, who can then review the police crash reports defined in the project and record the review results. The system can accommodate three classes of end users: 1. Those who review police crash reports and record review results. 2. Those who check on the project progress and quality. 3. Those who need general access to police crash reports with no specific projects. All of these end user types share a system interface that provides the following three main functions: 1. Review police crash reports and record review results. 2. View and export recorded information. 3. Search for crash records. As the existing system was developed for only in-house use, the existing end user interface was not designed to be user-friendly or look professional. As part of this project, the existing functions were made user-selectable. For example, instead of having the programmer set up the desired police crash report page layout for specific application, the system was modified to allow the end user to choose to display the pages in a variety of layouts, including display of multiple pages in different page ordering and orientation (i.e., vertically or horizontally), whether to display the Google Maps, and to zoom in and out the pages. As part of the system development, a beta test was conducted. A total of 15 best testers from various Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) offices, consulting companies, and universities provided about 140 comments and suggestions. These inputs were summarized and all suggestions that were deemed valid and useful were adopted and implemented, resulting in significant improvements to the system. In summary, the extended system provides user-friendly interfaces that allow the users to perform the following tasks quickly: * Select crashes for specific study locations and time periods by querying the Crash Analysis Reporting (CAR) database. * Set up police crash report review questions for review result recording. * Display multiple police crash report pages in different layouts. * Display police crash reports and study locations on Google Maps side-by-side. * Record police crash report review results that are linked directly to crash records. * Report potential errors in police crash reports. The system currently runs on a server at FIU and accesses some sample crash records and police crash reports. The next step is to deploy the system to a FDOT server and allow it to access the CAR and police crash report databases directly. It is also proposed that video tutorials with multiple sessions be developed to help the users get started and use the system effectively. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting