A Case Study in Spatial Misclassification of Work Zone Crashes

Studies associated with work zone crashes are often based on law enforcement traffic crash reports. Work zone crashes are typically segregated from the larger crash data set by special coding on reports that describe the crash as being in or near roadway construction. A spatial representation of the street and nearest intersecting roadway fields of the crash report and the boundaries of the work zone provide an idea where the crash occurred in a GIS environment. When the street location of the crash report is compared to the coded work zone field a validation of the location information is possible. Incongruence between the spatial location and coded report location indicates that more than 1 in 3 work zone crashes in the case study are misclassified.