njtr1: An R package for researching road safety in New Jersey using open crash data

Abstract

New Jersey law requires police officers to document motor vehicle collisions on a standardized form known as NJTR-1. The data collected via this form contain detailed information about motor vehicle crashes as well as drivers, vehicles & pedestrians involved in crashes, a valuable, but often underutilized resource for studying road safety in New Jersey. This paper presents njtr1, an R package that enables road safety and urban planning research in New Jersey by facilitating the easy download, automated cleaning and analysis of the raw crash table data published by the New Jersey Department of Transportation using the R programming language.

Gavin Rozzi

Pushing the boundaries of data, technology & public policy

Gavin Rozzi is a data scientist from New Jersey with expertise in leveraging public sector datasets, spatial data & mapping and emerging technologies to inform public policy development.