A Survey of Road Accident Reporting and Driver’s Behavior Awareness Systems: The Case of Tanzania

This research article published by Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2020,Road traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in developed and developing countries. It has been shown that road accident reporting systems could reduce their effects by minimizing response time and mapping road accident-prone areas. This paper provides an overview of the systems and applications for road accident reporting and drivers’ behavior awareness. A field survey, conducted in Dar es Salaam region in Tanzania, investigated the current state of road traffic accident reporting. Findings showed that the main means of reporting road accidents were physical reporting and police emergency phone calls. The absence of alternative means for reporting road accidents causes information delay and lack of precise accident location for the emergency first responders. This paper concludes by proposing a mobile application system for road accident reporting and drivers’ over-speed a

Development of a mobile application system for road accidents reporting and driver’s over-speeding behavior awareness in Tanzania

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master’s in Information and Communication Science and Engineering of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyRoad traffic accidents account as one of the major causes of injuries and loss of human lives. Various studies have shown that the implementation of road accident reporting systems can reduce road accidents injuries and deaths through time minimization in assisting the victims and also in the mapping of road accident-prone areas. This study reviewed several in-vehicle and smartphone sensor-based systems for road accident reporting and driver’s behavior awareness. Questionnaires, interviews, observations, document reviews were used to collect data from road users and traffic police officers. The study developed a mobile application system using the evolutionary prototyping method, where users tested the system and their feedbacks were incorporated iteratively. Findings from the survey revealed that road traffic accidents are mostly reported through police emergency numbers which are sometimes unreliable and unavailable giving traffic police officers challenges in knowing the precise accident location. Since traffic police officers are the recognized first responders in Tanzania, road accident information delays may increase the time taken to help road accident victims. The developed mobile application system has the potential to provide an alternative tool for the reporting of road accidents and over-speeding drivers in addition to the existing methods. The system would serve as a source of road accidents data from road users. The mobile applicat ion also collects users’ smartphone sensors logs for the future development of automatic road accident reporting systems. The developed mobile application system was validated and accepted by the users who agreed on its usefulness in improving road safety