Using Geographical Information Systems to Promote Vulnerable Road User Safety Education
Keywords: Children, Vulnerable users, Road Safety Strategy
Submission Date: January 23, 2020
Abstract
Pedestrian and bicycle accidents and injuries are important to children of school age, and should form a key part of educational strategies to involve children in understanding their risks. The transport context of Victorian pedestrian accidents is summarised in this paper. A competition using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and an accident database was used to encourage self motivated interest, enquiry and learning process for school-aged children. Schools were provided with CrashStats 1998 release data and geographic mapping data reformatted for immediate use in Caliper’s Maptitude GIS and database system for Microsoft Windows. Significant motivation was generated in student teams, and very good results were obtained in terms of safety explorations and understanding, involvement of a wider group of students, mastery of the GIS software, the supply and support of road accident data, and understanding of the road environment. The winning team was composed of students in years 7 and 8 working in their own time and largely unsupervised.
Source: 1998 Pedestrian Safety Conference