Comparing Road vs Transit Authority Tram/Streetcar Crash Reporting Approaches and Data

Road safety is the major concern for trams in traffic. This paper compares Melbourne tram related crash reporting between Crashstats, a crash database reported by road authority (VicRoads) and the tram Incident Report System (IRS) by tram authority (Yarra Trams). Significant differences are identified; IRS only records tram-involved incidents while Crashstats records wider data e.g. pedestrian collisions with cars when accessing tram stops; this is known to be one of the largest safety concerns for streetcars. This implies that both databases record incidents which in aggregate are critical to capture an overall picture of tram road safety. Five years crash count comparisons revealed startling Crashstats under-reporting in tram related crashes; IRS reports 5,430 tram related crashes while Crashstats reports only 147 (97% under-reporting), IRS report 4,240 tram to vehicle collisions vs 15 in Crashstats (99.7% under-reporting). Under-reporting for the critical Fatal and Serious Injury (FSI) crash category was particularly concerning; total tram-involved FSI are 66 in Crashstats and 433 in IRS (85% under reporting). Crashstats report only 5 tram/vehicle FSI events while IRS reports 127 (potentially 96% under reporting). A disaggregate analysis of crash rates by location illustrated that Crashstats use of specific location for incidents acted to highlight crash hot spots better than the link based reporting for IRS. IRS link reporting seemed to ‘hide’ some hotspots suggested by Crashstats.Overall results imply that important changes are needed in crash reporting in both databases to better understand tram related crash incidence. Implications for practice and future research are presented.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP000 Public Transportation Group. Comparing Road Versus Transit Authority Tram/Streetcar Crash Reporting Approaches and Data: This is an alternate title.
• Authors:
  • Naznin, Farhana
  • Currie, Graham
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 12p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crash data; Crash reports; Highway departments; Streetcars; Traffic safety; Transit authorities; Trolley cars
• Geographic Terms: Melbourne (Australia)
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01658036
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-00327
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 26 2018 9:47AM