The Hotspot Prediction application uses previous collision or casualty data at user-identified sites on the network to predict the expected number of collisions or casualties at these sites in the future with associated confidence intervals. The application builds a predictive model using available site and traffic characteristics – for example the speed limit, the type of road and classification, vehicle flow and average vehicle speed. The site prioritization function allows users to investigate the probability of each site exceeding a user-defined threshold. With the network editing function in PTV Visum Safety, users investigate the impact of a change in the network characteristics on the future distribution of collisions and casualties. This includes the construction of a new bypass or a change in land use that generates a change in the origin-destination matrix, for example the opening of a new retail park or major housing development.

With the Scheme Evaluation, users quantify the impact of a road safety intervention, for example installing safety cameras, on the number of collisions or casualties at the location of the intervention. The application uses collision or casualty data for the treated sites before and after the intervention and available information about these treated and control sites in terms of their physical and traffic characteristics, for example speed limit, the type of road and classification, vehicle flow and average vehicle speed. The tool provides a more accurate evaluation of the performance of the road safety intervention taking into account the confounding effects of regression-to-mean and trend. This is critical in cost-benefit analyses to assess the true scheme effects in terms of value-for-money.

Newcastle University and PTV Group have been collaborating since the 1980s. The most recent collaboration has been on road safety, specifically in the development of software identifying potential sites for treatment and the evaluation of site-based road safety interventions. The partnership also extends to the design and delivery of road safety training events and advice to key international organisations on the use of data for the improvement of road safety.

PTV Group’s portfolio of road safety solutions is supplemented by two additional powerful tools – PTV Visum Safety and PTV Vistad.

PTV Visum Safety, an extension to PTV Visum, is a tool for accident data analysis, which allows to integrate aspects of traffic safety into strategic traffic planning decisions from the very beginning. Through clear visualization, users are able to identify sections with high accident density. Elaborate accident prediction models allow the user to asses the risk of various scenarios when planning future infrastructure.

The accident database PTV Vistad offers qualitative collection, validation and analysis off accident data. Accidents can be visualized in a map with a mouse-click and exported into aggregated reports. These reports help to detect trends in accident statistics or to identify accident black spots. Users can control the effectiveness of action taken.

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