“DACOTA – Road Accident Data Collection Transfer and Analysis” of the seventh framework programme on transport research of the European Commission (2010-2012)

The purpose of this research project is to develop and implement new approaches to gather, structure and apply policy-related safety data that can be incorporated within the European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO). Within the DaCoTA project a protocol to collect information on road safety management systems and good practice in knowledge-based policy-making will be developed and the information will be incorporated into ERSO.  Suitable crash investigation teams will be identified within EU Member States and will be assisted to develop the local infrastructure to gather in-depth accident and injury causation data.  A road safety data warehouse will be elaborated as a comprehensive and integrated system with aggregate data and information consolidating, organising and making available all existing data and information, necessary for the support of the decision making.  Additionally, DaCoTA will develop a standardised approach to forecasting casualty trends based on the available data in EU Member States and will use this and other information to compare trends in relation to safety measures. Finally, DaCoTA will develop and validate a common methodology to record and analyse the behavioural and exposure data and to propose an implementation plan to setting up joint naturalistic driving observations through Europe.