Design and development of a prototype mobile geographic information system for real-time collection and storage of traffic accident data

Abstract: Today, Swedish police authorities nationwide collect data of traffic accidents. The information is stored in a national database managed by the Swedish Transport Agency and is an important resource in the process of analysing and improving road safety. Literature studies in this thesis, together with earlier work by the author have suggested that the data collection process is in need of an update: a digital tool for such data collection is necessary. Problems with varying quality of data and long submission times of reports have been attributed to the current method, which involves a paper form. A digital method including a handheld device is expected to improve data quality and shorten overall submission times. The aim of the thesis has thus been to design and develop a mobile GIS system for collection and management of traffic accident information for police authorities. The project has utilized mainly open source tools. The result is a system containing an Android application for data collection, a database server with a database for storage, an application server/web server to host a software server (map server), and a web server that handles requests and hosts a web service for viewing and retrieving data. The created system can collect all of the information that the currently used analogue method does as well as new media such as GPS coordinates, photographs and audio. The functionality of the web service demonstrates that data is collected and stored in suitable formats in a database schema that is flexible enough to facilitate a wide range of queries relevant to the field of road safety.