South Carolina is deploying a new road safety system using crash data to improve the safety of the state’s roads.

The state boasts 79,000 miles of highways and roads and over the next 26 months its Department of Transportation will develop, test and implement new technology aimed at reducing the number of road traffic accidents.

High-risk areas

It will use a solution from location intelligence vendor Hexagon. Its geospatial division will use existing crash data from South Carolina’s Department of Public Safety to help analysts and safety engineers identify high-risk areas. It will analyse the likes of crash rates, roadway characteristics and other data.

The system will also support the state’s Highway Safety Improvement Programme by supporting the collection of data and project identification. This will help to identify which transport safety programmes to fund.

Duncan Smith, state traffic safety engineer at South Carolina Department of Transportation, said: "Hexagon’s safety management system will give us a full lifecycle approach for integrating, analysing and reporting on data related to traffic collisions. It will ensure that we have the appropriate data to make more informed decisions and propose the right countermeasures for safety projects across the state.”

“South Carolina Department of Transportation is leading the way in its data-driven approach to managing roadway safety initiatives”

Mladen Stojic, president of Hexagon’s Geospatial division, added: “South Carolina Department of Transportation is leading the way in its data-driven approach to managing roadway safety initiatives. We are excited to deliver a system that will help the agency better identify and understand problematic areas to reduce fatalities and serious injuries.”

Last month Austrian public roads operator Asfinag launched a traffic management system that uses broadcast technology to analyse roadway conditions. Information about traffic jams, accidents and lane closures is then sent to motorists.

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