Case Study Highlights South Carolina Collision and Ticket Tracking System Benefits for Law Enforcement, Crash Data Management, and Highway Safety Programs.
Statewide, South Carolina, United States
South Carolina Safety Data Improvements through Electronic Crash System Deployment: Roadway Safety Data and Analysis Case Study
Summary Information
This case study highlights the methods used for deployment, training, and implementation of an electronic crash system, the South Carolina Collision and Ticket Tracking System (SCCATTS), and documents its benefits to law enforcement, crash data management, and highway safety programs. SCCATTS is a long-term initiative to improve law enforcement data quality and supports decision making with quality data and efficient data sharing among stakeholders.
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety (SCDPS) and the South Carolina DOT (SCDOT) implemented SCCATTS to provide an electronic data capture solution for crash information, citation data, and related personal contacts. SCCATTS eliminated paper reporting and associated manual data entry, and improved efficiency by supporting simultaneous access by multiple agencies. SCCATTS provides a solution for law enforcement agencies to use the SCDOT Linear Reference System to map the crash location. This makes it simpler for the State to link crash data with roadway inventory and traffic volume data. The system also stores the collision data for the State and creates aggregate reports for any data element within the system. SCCATTS applies business rule validations and edit checks for the State’s police crash report form, public contacts, and the Uniform Traffic Ticket. SCCATTS sends the raw data back to the law enforcement agencies and interfaces with SCDOT, South Carolina DMV (SCDMV) and other stakeholder agencies’ systems.
Key benefits of SCCATTS were identified, including:
- The roadside time police officers spend in filling out crash reports went from an average of 33 minutes to 12 minutes, a 63 percent reduction. Some of the same data elements were also shared between crash, citation, and personal contact forms, saving the officers even more time at the crash scene.
- Average investigation time of a collision report from date of incident to final acceptance in the crash data file went down to 8.7 days from a 60-day backlog for paper report processing, an 85 percent reduction.
- The number of required key entry staff decreased from ten operators to five, a 50 percent reduction.
- SCCATTS provides a standardized way for law enforcement to process crash and citation data and deliver data to fellow stakeholder agencies through a streamlined electronic process. A web service transmits data from the State system electronically to State DMV, eliminating the sequential passing of paper reports, resulting in 80 percent of the reports being processed electronically.
- SCCATTS obtains more timely, accurate, and complete crash and citation data. Work zone crash data can be analyzed in near real time due to pre-defined reports made available within the State System.
- SCCATTS avoids costs for licensing and hardware for the investigating agencies.
