Dashboard throws light on crash factors

Telematics technology firm Teletrac Navman has launched an interactive online dashboard that provides insights into the issues that influence road safety.

The free-to-use Teletrac Navman UK Road Safety Dashboard assimilates the data from the annual Department for Transport (DfT) ‘Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain’ report and allows users to drill down into details such as, lighting and road conditions, level of speed and time of day, as factors in road collisions.

The firm, which provides telematics for commercial and local authority fleet operators, says this can help users gain greater insight into how certain conditions can lead to changes in driver behaviour and the safety of their drivers and other road users. It can also help other organisations with a responsibility for road safety, such as highway authorities.

Marketing director Peter Millichap said: ‘The dashboard we have developed provides an easy-to-read and convenient way to digest this critical information.

‘As data specialists, we thrive on turning data into actionable insights so that fleet operators can make fast decisions to improve their businesses and the industry as a whole. We believe that post-pandemic monitoring could be the key to improving the safety of all road users now and in the future.’

The dashboard shows that while the number of incidents fell across the country from 2019 to 2020, reflecting lower traffic volumes due to the pandemic and lockdowns, the ‘severe accident rate’ rose in most areas.

It also shows for example that the highest ‘severe accident rate’ was on roads with a 60mph limit. These roads are likely to be single carriageway roads, whereas roads with a 70mph limit will be dual carriageways or motorways.

Transport Network does not itself use the term ‘accident’ to refer to road collisions or incidents on the basis that such incidents almost invariably have an underlying cause and are potentially preventable.