Identifying and improving exposure measures

Abstract

Exposure information, accompanied by comparable crash data, allows the identification of specific high crash risk groups and road environments that can be targeted by appropriate road safety measures. This report aimed to firstly identify the current sources of exposure data available in South Australia and examine their limitations and secondly, make recommendations about the most useful measures of exposure for road safety and how they might best be obtained. Based on a review of the international literature, examination of relevant databases and discussions with organizations collecting exposure data, a list of sources of exposure data available in South Australia was produced, acknowledging any limitations associated with the data. A discussion of the usefulness of exposure measures in road safety, in general terms and specific to South Australia, concluded with comments on four possible strategies for collecting better exposure data in the future: data collection by conventional means, the use of new technology for data collection, better theoretical understanding of induced exposure methods and the collection of compatible exposure data for road crash research.