Organisation
Road Safety Foundation
Amount awarded
£199,327
Completed
2024
Uploaded to Knowledge Centre
20 August 2024
This project aimed to make telematics speed measurement data available via a dedicated platform to enable more refined understanding of vehicle behavioural speeds for use in road safety interventions and to develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and guidance documents to support the use of such data.
In the UK, telematic solutions are estimated to be in use with 9% of the UK vehicle fleet. The telematics data which has been used in this project originates from opt-in users related to large scale insurance and risk products. These can provide meaningful behaviour measurement for all parts of the UK road network and are gathered with consent for anonymous aggregated reuse enabling support and application in this study.
Billions of speed measurements from telematics journeys have been utilised for this project encompassing two years of journeys travelling in the study region. The data gathered has previously been validated for use in transport surveys, infrastructure studies and transport modelling work meeting DfT WebTAG requirements for use in such studies and appraisals. The data gathered provides evidential views of behaviour by small sections of the road network gathered statistically over time to ensure providing representative traffic behaviour.
Within the project, extensive stakeholder consultation was undertaken to understand both current practices and needs. This process enabled extraction and consolidation of user requirements to best support the needs of various stakeholder end users. This user analysis supported and informed the development of a modular interface best suiting end users.
The impact of the data on road safety practice was evaluated in the project through a survey, case studies and focus groups.
The telematics speed data was made available to road safety stakeholders in the West Midlands region in October 2022. The speed portal is designed to allow users to view and explore data related to speed and the behaviour of drivers on roads of interest. The landing page consists of a default view of the region which enables users to explore the area geographically and when a user zooms in, the default query shows the 85th percentile speed data for that area. Users can choose to filter by political region, output areas or police regions, can choose a data year of 2019 or 2021, annual data or by quarter, which days and which time period. A user can then choose what speeds they would like displayed and once these filters are all chosen, the data is displayed on a map. There is also an opportunity to download an excel file with much more detail on it, including harsh braking, acceleration, percentages above each speed limit etc.
The SOPs provide guidance to users on how to use the data in a variety of ways including how to inform speed limit setting and how to identify areas with the highest non-compliance. Stakeholders are using the platform and the data which can be obtained from it in a number of different ways.
• West Midlands Police use the data to supplement other data sources to identify the highest risk routes and undertake speed enforcement accordingly.
• West Midlands Fire Service use the data to enable them to produce a document that crews utilise to see what issues and areas are the most prevalent in their Station areas. This then gives an indication on the type of intervention, or projects that are required from the data. This approach helps WMFS shape education packages that are delivered within places of education and local communities.
• Solihull Council have been using data from the platform to generate speed information to include in reports to their Cabinet Member for Environment and Infrastructure. Additionally, during October and November 2023 they used data to assess, consider and compare performance of roads and corridors as part of their two-yearly review of collisions occurring in the borough. This enabled network wide data to be considered for the first time and provided access to detailed granular, co-ordinate linked information that gave the ability to understand how the network is being used with a greater level of certainty than ever before.
Once access had been provided to users, they started to use the data in a number of ways and five areas of utilising the data were explored, these were:
• Investigating the utility of telematics speed data paired with iRAP surveys.
• Exploring the suitability of using telematics speed data in iRAP surveys.
• Using telematics speed data to inform enforcement activity.
• Using telematics speed data to inform road safety engineering approach.
• Using telematics speed data to guide Safe System planning.
There are over 60 users who have registered and logged into the system and the data are being used in a number of ways for enforcement, road safety and research purposes. Therefore, it is considered that the project has been a success and has met its overall objective which was ‘to make telematics speed data available in a user-friendly platform to ensure that as many road safety actors can access and use the data as easily as possible, and to describe the ways in which the data can be used effectively through SOPs and guidance notes.’ The advances in good practice within the project will be shared with a wider road safety audience through a variety of dissemination channels to maximise positive impact.
Click the link below to read the full report:
https://www.roadsafetytrust.org.uk/funded-projects/road-safety-foundation-1