Development of the European road safety knowledge system

This chapter presents the European Road Safety Knowledge System, which was developed within the Data Collection Transfer and Analysis (DaCoTA) research project of the 7th Framework Program of the European Commission. This knowledge system includes a number of components, concerning data and tools, road safety issues and countries. A three-step methodology was adopted for the development of this European Road Safety Knowledge System. Initially, a wealth of data and information was gathered and stored in an organized way, on road fatalities, exposure, safety performance indicators, socioeconomic indicators, health and causation indicators, road user attitudes and behaviors, traffic laws and regulations, road safety management structure and processes for 30 European countries. Data and information gathered was exploited within DaCoTA for the estimation of road traffic fatalities based on time-series analysis, as it is important to know in what direction the annual casualties are developing, and how fast this development