Measuring the Relative Risk on a Serious Crash through Linking Mobility and Hospital Data: A Novel Approach Adopted in Belgium

In order to calculate the risk of being seriously injured or killed in a road accident, it is necessary to have access to detailed exposure data, to data on fatalities and to data on serious injuries provided by hospitals. In Belgium a first successful attempt has been made for developing more accurate and useful risk measures, in particular for severe crashes. A “severe crash” is defined as a crash in which at least one of the road users involved either died, or was “seriously” injured. Serious injured people are defined as having injuries with a MAIS score of 3+. The approach in Belgium is based on comparing hospital data from all Belgian hospitals and mobility data from a major national survey (Beldam) containing mobility data. The mobility data referred to the year 2009 and included detailed trip information of over 15,000 people. The hospital data concerned the years 2007-2011. All traffic victims in Belgium that stayed at least one night in any Belgian hospital were included in the data. The results of the project illustrate the considerable underestimation of traffic victims if only police data is taken into account. It also yielded measures of the relative risk of suffering from a severe road crash by age category and transportation mode compared to the average car driver. For instance, the risk of a motorcyclist (by km travelled) to get seriously injured or killed in a crash is 57 times higher than that of a car driver. Public transport is by far the safest transport mode for passengers.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB20 Standing Committee on Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Martensen, Heike
  • Wouter, Van den Berghe
  • Nuyttens, Nina
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash injuries; Crash severity; Fatalities; Injury severity; Medical records; Police reports; Risk assessment
• Geographic Terms: Belgium
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I80: Accident Studies; I84: Personal Injuries;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01588990
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-1878
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 30 2016 6:07PM