The Future of Traffic Records

as envisioned by…

Carol Flannagan, Ph.D.

Interim Director, UMTRI

October 27, 2015Traffic Records Forum

Traffic Records and AutomationCrash records

• Individually, crash records serve as a police record of an event for insurance, legal, and other purposes

• Collectively, crash data are surveillance data- How many?

- What outcomes (e.g., fatality, serious injury)?

- Who?

- How are patterns changing?

- How should we focus resources to improve things?

Traffic Records Now

Crash

VIN

Registration

Location

Roadway

??

Medical

DL#

Licensing

DL#

Citation

Traffic Records FutureWhat does the future of traffic records look like? Look at airline industry

– Highly automated (not 100%)

– Extremely safe

– Crash records populated by case studies—in depth, detailed, few

– Black box data are critical, along with time-series records of position/heading and other data

When do we switch from statistics to case studies?

Traffic Records Future

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 20150

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

7,000,000

8,000,000

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

Highway Air

Year

Num

ber o

f Hig

hway

Cra

shes

Num

ber o

f Air

Acc

iden

ts

Traffic Records Future

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 20400

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

7,000,000

8,000,000

AirHighway

Year

Num

ber o

f Cra

shes

Traffic Records Future• Crash data systems lack good pre-crash information

• As vehicles become increasingly automated, pre-crash and crash context will become increasingly important to understand what happened and how automated systems need to be improved

• Over time, driving data (e.g., traffic/congestion/vehicle movements) will become increasingly important for understanding and monitoring safety as well as congestion, and mobility

• Current federated data systems need to become part of the same larger data system

Traffic Records Future

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

2026

2027

2028

2029

2030

2031

2032

2033

2034

2035

Driving/Traffic/TravelCrash

Year

$$ S

pent

/Ann

ual D

ata

Volu

me

Traffic Records Future

V2X

VINRegistration

Sensor data

Location

Roadway

Tolling

Traffic

Weather

Person ID

Medical

Crash (EDR)

DL#

Licensing

Traffic Records Future• What data will need to be obtained purposefully and

what will come naturally (if accessed)?– V2X– EDR– Sensors on vehicle– Sensors on road (e.g., tolling, etc.)

– Crash (case studies)– Licensing– Registration

Traffic Records Future• Who will need access?

– Government– Research & Development– Industry– Public

Traffic Records FutureKey Issues

1. How can we handle the volume of data at reasonable cost?- Long-term stored data (e.g., surveillance, research,

development, regulation)

- Short-term processed data (e.g., traffic management)

Traffic Records FutureKey Issues

2. How do we assign data as public vs. private?- Event Data Recorder (EDR) as part of crash record

(currently not)?

- Cell phone data currently aggregated and sold by private industry to provide traffic and congestion information; can this model also serve the public good?

Traffic Records FutureKey Issues

3. How do we build towards highly interconnected data systems from where we are?- Linkage must be prioritized now!

Thanks for your attention.

University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI)