Crashes and Injuries on Rural Roads in Alaska - Toward a Better Understanding of Rural Safety Issues through Linked Data and Environmental Factors

The State of Alaska has a high percentage of low-volume roads and many rural communities that rely on less conventional and “non-traditional” forms of transportation from an engineering and planning perspective. Many of these communities do not have the personnel or systems to report to the standard motor vehicle crash database. However, injury information maintained by hospitals and acute care facilities has the potential to help fill these data gaps. In addition, the sparse transportation network and rural nature of Alaska presents inherent data size issues, making most statistical methods of analysis erroneous. To address these issues, this work will concentrate on nonstandard safety data such as injuries and crashes on off-highway vehicles, such as 4-wheelers and snow machines, as well as non-standard accident reporting such as hospital records as cataloged in the Alaska Trauma Registry (AKTR) and other relevant datasets. The primary goals are to: (1) engage relevant parties needed to develop a systems-based approach and streamline the data linkage process; and (2) establish a framework and a baseline by creating a more robust and comprehensive set of transportation safety data.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $138422
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747129

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Center for Safety Equity in Transportation

  University of Alaska Fairbanks
  Fairbanks, AK  United States  99775

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Center for Safety Equity in Transportation

  University of Alaska Fairbanks
  Fairbanks, AK  United States  99775
• Performing Organizations:

  Center for Safety Equity in Transportation

  University of Alaska Fairbanks
  Fairbanks, AK  United States  99775
• Principal Investigators:

  Belz, Nathan

  Vasudevan, Vinod

• Start Date: 20220901
• Expected Completion Date: 20230731
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: All terrain vehicles; Crash causes; Crash injuries; Rural highways; Snowmobiles
• Geographic Terms: Alaska
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01853935
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Center for Safety Equity in Transportation
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747129
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Aug 5 2022 4:31PM