Since 2014, SafeTREC has been working on the Tribal Road Safety Data Collection project to improve traffic safety on tribal lands in California. The goal of this project is to improve traffic safety on and near tribal lands in California. Learn more about the project here.
Tribal Crash Data Tool
SafeTREC works in collaboration with the National Indian Justice Center (NIJC) to enhance the capacity of tribal entities to collect crash data and submit this data to the Statewide Integrated Traffic Record System (SWITRS) and use SWITRS data to conduct traffic safety analyses on tribal lands. SafeTREC developed a tribal crash data tool by obtaining shapefiles from 107 of the 110 federally recognized tribal areas in California; the remaining three tribal areas are landless or comprise only trust land owned by individual tribal members. These shape files define tribal boundaries, and by overlaying geocoded collision data from the Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS) onto these shape files, a description (number, type, etc.) of traffic collisions was generated. Geocoded crash data for a ten-year period has been linked with tribal shape files to identify injury collisions within tribal boundaries and in the immediate vicinity of tribal areas. Since tribal lands have not been identified by a SWITRS jurisdiction code, this is the first time in California that it was possible to determine traffic collision trends/patterns in tribal areas.
This data tool provides tribes with access to a web-based interactive analysis and mapping tool for tribal areas. This tool is password protected and has features for mapping and analyses of data related to the tribal area. The tribal data tool utilizes tribal shape files since SWITRS does not include jurisdiction codes for tribes.
We have introduced this tool to a number of tribal communities. To date, approximately 30 tribes have used the tool to explore traffic collision patterns on or near their tribal lands, and some have begun to use the tool to produce data for crash analyses and safety funding. The use of this tool has demonstrated to tribes the value of accessing SWITRS data for their tribal lands. However, the data available in SWITRS for tribal road safety analyses is limited because the data available from SWITRS is primarily comprised of data collected from State Highway System roads running through tribal areas. There is evidence that even crash data from these roads are underreported.
Learn more about the Tribal Crash Data Tool and how to set up an account here. Once you have your username and password, the Tribal Crash Data Tool can be accessed at: https://tribaldata.berkeley.edu/login.php
Tribal TIMS Tutorial
Watch our tutorial on how to use the Tribal Transportation Injury Mapping System (TIMS) Data Tool.
For more information, please email safetrec@berkeley.edu.
Funding for this project is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).