Spatial Patterns in Traffic Accident Risks: Residential Location Based Analyses

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Joachim Scheiner
• Subject Area: Urbanism, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: from 2014 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 265605142

The spatial categorisation of traffic accidents is typically made on the basis of places of accident. This approach, however, leaves only limited room for conclusions about population-based risks, because the place of accident does not necessarily match a victim's place of residence. This project employs a residence-based approach to geographically analyse population-based accident risks. Combined place-of-residence and place-of-accident-based analyses are undertaken as well.The analyses are based on accident casualty counts provided by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior covering the period 2006-2013. They include the number of casualties, categorised by severity of accident, age, sex and transport mode. The data include postal codes of the casualties' place of residence and place of accident. These data will be matched with sociodemographic, economic, exposure, transport-related and urban form attributes.Doing so, associations between these context attributes and population-based accident risks can be studied in considerably more detail than to date. This will be done for Lower Saxony as a whole on the municipality level, and for the Region of Hannover on the micro-spatial level of neighbourhoods. In terms of methodology, descriptive statistics and maps will be used as well as regression analysis and multiple equation models (structural equation models). Detailed analyses will be undertaken for population groups based on age and sex, social status of the residential neighbourhood (for the Region of Hannover) and transport mode. Spatial differences in risk trends will be studied as well.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants