Transportation Safety Databases - Safety Report
Authors: U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
Date of Publication: 2002
Sponsoring Agency: U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
Performing Organization: U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
Report No: SR-02-02
Abstract:
The National Transportation Safety Board relies on many external databases
when performing accident investigations, safety studies, and special
investigations. Most of these databases are sponsored and operated by the modal
administrations of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The Board’s
ability to study important safety issues is often affected by poor data quality.
The Board studied transportation safety databases to evaluate data quality
issues and to encourage improvements in this area. The effort had four specific
objectives: (a) highlight the value and potential uses of transportation safety
data; (b) describe some accident and incident databases commonly used by the
Board; (c) summarize past Board recommendations involving transportation data;
and (d) evaluate Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) efforts to establish
data quality standards, identify information gaps, and ensure compatibility
among the safety data systems maintained by the DOT. The Safety Board’s past recommendations indicate that exposure data are not
adequately detailed to support the analysis of risk factors for transportation
accidents, reducing the ability of the Federal government to understand safety
problems and target safety resources. BTS efforts to identify information gaps
and to establish data quality standards are an important first step toward
improving data quality. As a result of this finding, the Board issued a
recommendation to the BTS to develop a long-term program to improve the
collection of data describing exposure to transportation risk in the United
States.
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