SELATM - A GIS BASED PROGRAM FOR EVALUATING THE SAFETY BENEFITS OF LOCAL-AREA TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SCHEMES

Particular safety problems relate to traffic on local streets. Local A rea Traffic Management (LATM) schemes are often implemented with the o bjective of counteracting these safety problems. One analytical diffic ulty in appraising the effectiveness of LATM in dealing with safely pr oblems has been the 'footloose' nature of accident locations in a loca l street network. Seldom are there distinct 'blackspot' locations. An area-wide approach is needed and the interaction between the system an d arterial road network must be considered. The paper describes the de velopment of a Safety Evaluation Method for Local Area Traffic Managem ent (termed SELATM). It is a GIS-based program for analysing accident patterns over time and the evaluation of the safety benefits of LATM s chemes. The evaluation is perform at different network levels for vari ous accident variables. The thrust of the program involved the integra tion of network data with data on accidents and the installed devices to generate summary accident statistics for the various network levels allowing for before and after comparison with a control area. This pr ogram as developed is applied to a LATM scheme at Enfield, a suburb in metropolitan Adelaide.