Interactive Road Safety Map Reveals Britain’s Safest and Most Dangerous Locations

LONDON, UK – 29th November 2021. An updated free CollisionMap is now available from https://CollisionMap.uk showing road safety data across Britain. CollisionMap, an interactive map, has been enhanced and updated to incorporate 2020 collision data, which has recently been released by the Department for Transport (DfT). As well as plotting all collisions dating back to the beginning of 2011, the map allows users to examine the data by region, council area and postcode and to compare figures for 2019 with 2020. Figures can be compared for individual councils against others in the same region, and users can input the first part of a postcode to compare it to the national picture. Uniquely, CollisionMap also adjusts the collision data according to population. This means that users can more accurately compare their own location with others or with the national picture.

The data reveals some interesting headline stories:
• There has been a sizable overall reduction in the number of both collisions and casualties in 2020 across mainland Britain with a 28.8% and 32.5% fall, respectively. The lower traffic volumes, resulting from measures to fight Covid, are likely to be a significant factor in this positive news.
• Wales has seen the halving of its collisions in 2020 - down by an impressive 50.2%.
• London’s numbers have also decreased sensibly, with reductions of 20.7% for collisions, 23.5% for casualties, and 28.6% for killed and seriously-injured (KSI) casualties.
• Overall, the number of collisions resulting in a KSI has decreased by 27% (19,746 versus 2019’s 25,080).
• The safest locations: there are a number of postcodes with a casualty rate, per million population, of below 1. These tend to be rural postcode districts, which have both low volumes of traffic and low populations.

The map has been created by Buchanan Computing, a company that specialises in web mapping and software for traffic engineering and highway management.

Alex Smith, Managing Director of Buchanan Computing explains why the company created the map: “Maintaining road safety is an important issue. There are severe financial pressures on local government, meaning authorities can’t always devote the necessary funding to road safety. By allowing the public free access to CollisionMap, we feel we are playing a part by providing the information they need that allows them to engage with local authorities on road safety matters.”

He continues, “What is unique to CollisionMap is that we’ve incorporated the facility for the public to see how they compare adjusted for population levels as well as the road length in their area. So, everyone can see if they are in a postcode that has good road safety and also check how their local authority stands compared to others.”

The home page map shows the collision percentage change from 2019 to 2020 for the major regions of Scotland, Wales and England. The map can be modified by selecting one of the other available options, to show: casualty percentage changes, fatal collisions per million population, killed and seriously injured (KSI) per million population, casualties per million population, and casualties per kilometre. The totals for all injury-related collisions, casualties and KSI collisions for the whole of Great Britain in 2020 are displayed next to the map. These change when the region selection changes.

When searching by postcode district – for example, LS6 - you access a map of the location of its 2020 collisions. These are colour coded by severity. The map data can be refined between any two dates within the last nine years (2011 - 2020), or expanded to show different heat maps, such as: the collision percentage change from 2019 to 2020; fatal collisions per million of population. There are also filters to select results based on the severity of the collision. On the right of the page, a series of selections allow you to filter your search results further: you can select road users by gender, age, and severity as well as filter for casualties by road user or class. The interactive gauges change with the selections and compare the selected postcode with the national level (for 2020), letting users know whether the situation in the chosen area is better or worse than the national one. For example, cyclist casualties in LS6 were worse (higher) than the national level, but for the same postcode district, casualties in cars were better (lower) than the national rate.

Are you in a postcode that has good road safety? Go to https://CollisionMap.uk to find out.

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Notes to editors:
• Images are available for download from https://we.tl/t-wEtxekyxpm until 5th December 2021 – after that, contact Umberto.Musico@buchanancomputing.co.uk
• Publications may also make their own screen shots from: https://CollisionMap.uk
• CollisionMap includes data of collisions from 01/01/2011 to 31/12/2020 and includes the location of the collision and type.
• The interactive dashboard uses the latest 2020 data released by the DfT to provide the view for Great Britain, the major regions, councils and finally the ability to drill down to individual sector level postcodes.
• Regions can be sorted alphabetically, or ranked to show the highest and lowest collision, casualty and KSI rates.
• By clicking on a region, users can drill down to see the rates for top tier authorities within each region.
• Comparative heat maps show the collision and casualty data, normalised based on population density.
• The location search allows users to search by region name, council name or district level postcode – for example, East of England, Essex or CO1.

About Buchanan Computing
Buchanan Computing was established in 1997. The company is based in Hammersmith, London and specialises in software for traffic engineering and highway management and in web mapping, cloud computing and training.

It develops, supplies and supports systems for customers throughout the British Isles and is the foremost supplier to UK highway authorities of computer mapping (GIS), and software for the design and management of traffic regulation orders and traffic signs.

http://www.buchanancomputing.co.uk

Contact:
Umberto Musico, Consultant
Umberto.Musico@buchanancomputing.co.uk|020 8846 3220