By Sam Upton 

There’s little doubt that the world now runs on data. Every day, the amount of data generated by people and systems around the world is estimated to be around 750 terabytes, which equates to just over 750,000GB. While most of that data is used for streaming videos, there’s a relatively small amount that, when analysed, could make a big difference to road safety.  

A fresh perspective 

One of the largest UK projects designed to gather and analyse road safety data is PRANA, the Pre-hospital Research and Audit Network. A collaboration between TRL, University Hospital Southampton, the Wessex NHS Secure Data Environment and a network of partners across healthcare, academia, government and the emergency services, the long-term project is designed to provide an all-round view of the causes and consequences of road traffic collisions.  

Recognised in the Government’s National Road Safety Strategy, the scheme matches STATS19 police collision records with NHS data to follow what happens from the moment a crash occurs to long-term patient outcomes, providing the opportunity to deliver a clear understanding of road safety risks and the real‑world impacts of road collisions on people, patients and the NHS. 

“This project is a global first,” says Dr Phil Martin, TRL’s head of transport safety. “By anonymously linking health data with road safety data, we can unlock new insights that will enable us to approach road safety with a fresh perspective. Our goal is to ensure that no more lives are unnecessarily lost on Britain’s roads.” 

Risk assessments 

While the vast amounts of data from organisations such as the police and NHS offer a wealth of knowledge and insight, there are a number of projects that use data from the vehicles themselves to gain an understanding of serious road risks before collisions actually occur.  

Funded by the Road Safety Trust, the ‘From Prediction to Prevention’ pilot project in Leeds used data from connected vehicles to identify locations where driver behaviour suggested an elevated risk of collision. That behaviour could be anything from repeated harsh braking, unexpected hazards or simply poor driving. The project pinpointed a number of places that drivers were finding difficult to navigate safely, even before any significantly high collision rates, enabling the local authority to find solutions to these potential safety hot spots.  

While this in itself is valuable information, the study also provides a data-driven model for other areas of highway authority road management.  

“Every day, highway authorities make decisions about maintenance programmes, active travel schemes, traffic management, network resilience, asset management and investment priorities,” explains Wesley Bateson, UK lead for Aisin RoadTrace, the company tasked with gathering and analysing the data. “Traditionally, those decisions are often informed by different datasets owned by different teams across an organisation. What became increasingly clear throughout the Leeds pilot was that connected vehicle data can contribute to many of those discussions.” 

Linked in 

Whatever the source of data, it’s clear that its value is going to increase in road safety, whether that’s in the identification of locations with a higher risk of accidents or improving outcomes for those involved in accidents. But more than that, it offers a new way of bringing together all the different areas of highways, connecting everything together to deliver new working models and ultimately, bring down the numbers of people killed or seriously injured on the roads.  

“Road safety shouldn’t exist in isolation from the wider highways function,” says Bateson. “Every investment made on the network has the potential to influence safety outcomes, whether that’s a junction improvement, a walking and cycling scheme, resurfacing programme or changes to traffic management.” 

• Book your place for the 19 November CIHT Masterclass on road safety here  

• Find out more about the road safety category in the 2027 CIHT Awards here