We are pleased to announce spatial and corridor query filters are now part of the RoadSafe GIS Collision Database Management System. Our last blog post outlined the preview features option for querying large datasets. Now these new filters will allow users to more precisely target collisions within their jurisdiction and maintain optimal browser performance displaying the results.
The spatial filter allows you to draw a shape over a geographic area and restrict results to that area. The results will also incorporate any other filters you may have selected such as the type of collision or collision severity. You already had the capability to spatially select a new set of results from the map window, but this spatial query is completed before showing any results. Why is this important? Well, for large cities it may not be feasible to show all the collision results at once. For example, if there were 10,000 collisions in a city each year and you requested five years of collision data, the results page would try to display 50,000 collisions in the map. There are of course ways to aggregate data via clustering, heatmaps or spatial dependent rendering, but with collision data it is still valuable to always have access to the individual record when interacting with the map.
The spatial filter will be beneficial to cities/counties that have a large number of collisions and may have previously been restricted in the potential results. The second filter we have added is a corridor filter that allows a user to pick the start and end points of a corridor to only select collisions on that corridor:
The corridor filter will respect the other filters so it can be used as a mid-block query. Simply select ‘INTERSECTION = N’ as a collision filter and only mid-block collisions will be selected on the corridor. The corridor filter is based on a walking routing system, so it will calculate the shortest distance between the start and end points regardless if it is a one-way street. This will for the most part restrict the selection to the corridor of choice, but if shortest walking distance happens to divert onto another street only the collisions on the main street will be selected in the results.
Both these new features should make it quicker and easier to find the data you are looking for. Get in touch with us at info@roadsafegis.com if you are interested in trying out a demo.