Mari Törmänen, Statistikcentralen, Mari.Tormanen@stat.fi

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To get more specific information about the places where road traffic accidents have taken place Statistics Finland has implemented a new geographic information system, which gives new geographical data and also improves quality of the road traffic accident data.

At the beginning of 2009 Statistics Finland implemented a new geographic information system to help locate places where road traffic accidents occur. This was done in co-operation with the Finnish police and the Finnish Road Administration.

Statistics Finland gets road traffic accident data direct from the Finnish police. At the beginning of 2009, police started to record accurate co-ordinates for an accident scene. The co-ordinates make it possible to combine road traffic accident data with geographical Digiroad data.

Digiroad is a national road database, which contains precise data on the locations of all roads and streets in Finland as well as on their most important physical features. Digiroad is maintained and updated by the Finnish Road Administration. Combining Digiroad and road traffic accident data makes it possible to get precise information on accidents and improve quality of the road traffic accident data. Use of the new combined data in the error checking process makes it possible to find potential logical errors concerning an accident.

Key words: road traffic accident, GIS, Finland, Digiroad, co-ordinates, geographical data.