The Regional Transportation Safety Information Management System (RTSIMS) software is MAG’s tool for performing crash data analyses. This helps regional transportation safety planning. The RTSIMS software was developed through on-call consultant projects and with state funds from the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT). This effort received input from local agencies in the MAG region. It is constantly improved based on user feedback. Oversight is provided by the ADOT and MAG’s Transportation Safety Committee.
The RTSIMS development process has produced useful reference documents and fruitful discussions among road safety practitioners in the MAG region. These outcomes have contributed much towards improving the state of practice in transportation safety planning in Arizona.
RTSIMS has an interface that offers users the ability to search the crash database and perform many macro-level crash data analyses. RTSIMS can perform macro-level of crash analysis for one jurisdiction or for the entire MAG planning area. It can also do micro-level analysis at a specific intersection. MAG staff provide assistance to local agencies that submit requests for performing crash data analyses. Presently, intersection collision diagrams cannot be generated using RTSIMS.
An RTSIMS user has two options to construct and run queries on the crash database. (1) Standard Reports – these are the basic and most common queries in any crash data analysis. The user selects variables from drop down menus to construct and submit these queries. (2) Custom Reports – these provide the user the ability to construct a wide range of queries by defining desired report type and building applicable data filters. Standard Reports are easy to generate and will provide answers to most questions on citywide crash occurrence trends. Custom Reports require a higher level of knowledge in crash data analysis and the data structure of the ADOT ALISS database. RTSIMS can generate reports with statistics and the corresponding graphics (tables, bar/pie charts and trend lines). Upon generating a report a user may export the results shown in the report in a preferred format. Another feature that is part of RTSIMS 2.1 provides the ability to export raw data from any RTSIMS query.
The RTSIMS software runs queries on an archive of crash data related to the MAG planning area. The source of this crash data is the ALISS crash database maintained by ADOT. As new crash data are released by ADOT it is incorporated into the MAG crash data archive. As of February 2017, the crash database at MAG covers the years 1999 through 2015. Updating the crash database for the previous year generally occurs mid-year.
A user guide has been developed for RTSIMS 2.1 and is for use by end users. Any comments and suggestions from end users to improve it are welcome.
Users may contact Margaret Herrera at MAG for assistance with building complex queries.
RTSIMS 2.1 has the following capabilities:
RTSIMS software generates reports by running SQL queries on an archive of crash data that represents all reported crashes in the MAG region. The source of this crash data is the ALISS crash database maintained by ADOT. As with any large database, there may be some errors in the data. MAG does not, at present, perform any data scrubbing to eliminate errors.
Transportation Safety Program Manager Margaret Herrera
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