Roadway Safety Data Program
 

SOUTH CAROLINA SAFETY DATA IMPROVEMENTS
 

THROUGH ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM DEPLOYMENT
 

ROADWAY SAFETY DATA AND ANALYSIS
 

CASE STUDY
 

FHWA‐SA‐16‐109
 

Federal Highway Administration Office of Safety
 

Roadway Safety Data Program
 

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/rsdp/
 

November 18, 2016
 
SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

ii

Notice 

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Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no 

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manufacturers’ names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the 

objective of the document. 

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and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement. 
1. Report No. 

FHWA-SA-16-109 

2. Government Accession 

No. 

3. Recipient's Catalog No. 

 

4. Title and Subtitle 

South Carolina Safety D

Deployment: Roadway

ata Improvements t

 Safety Data and Ana

hrough Electronic Crash System 

lysis Case Study 

5. Report Date 

Month Year 

6. Performing Organization Code 

7.Author(s) 

Robert A. Scopatz and Richard Brown 

8. Performing Organization Report No. 

9. Performing Organization Name and Address 

VHB 

8300 Boone Blvd., Suite 700 

Vienna, VA 22182-2626 

10. Work Unit No. 

11. Contract or Grant No. 

DTFH61-10-D-00022 

12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address 

Federal Highway Administration Office of Safety 

1200 New Jersey Ave., SE 

Washington, DC 20590 

13. Type of Report and Period 

Draft Report ,October 2016– 

14. Sponsoring Agency Code 

FHWA 

15. Supplementary Notes 

The contract manager for this report was Esther Strawder. 

16. Abstract 

The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) and the South Carolina Department of Public Safety (SCDPS) 

implemented the South Carolina Collision and Ticket Tracking System (SCCATTS), a long-term initiative to improve law 

enforcement data quality. SCCATTS supports decision making with quality data and efficient data sharing among 

stakeholders. The benefits of SCCATTS include providing a standardized way for law enforcement to process crash and 

citation data through a streamlined electronic process, obtaining more timely, accurate, and complete crash and citation 

data, data-driven decision-making, and delivering data to stakeholder agencies electronically, further eliminating the paperbased process. 

17. Key Words: 

safety data, electronic crash report, citation data, 

crash data 

18. Distribution Statement 

No restrictions. 

19. Security Classif. (of this report) 

Unclassified 

20. Security Classif. (of this 

page) Unclassified 

21. No. of Pages 

 15 

22. Price 

Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-72) Reproduction of completed pages authorized 

SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION PAGE 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 

BACKGROUND............................................................................................ 1 

OBJECTIVE ................................................................................................... 2 

AUDIENCE .................................................................................................... 2 

DEVELOPMENT OF SCCATTS ................................................................. 3 

RESULTS ....................................................................................................... 5 

FUNDING ...................................................................................................................... 5 

BENEFITS ...................................................................................................................... 5 

BARRIERS AND HOW THEY WERE OVERCOME ................................................. 7 

LESSONS LEARNED .................................................................................................... 7 

NEXT STEPS ................................................................................................................. 7 

REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 8 

AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION .................................................... 8 

SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

List of Figures 

Figure 1. Point and click location interface for SCCATTS. .......................................... 4 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

ACRONYMS 

DDACTS Data Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety 

LRS Linear reference system 

LTAP Local Technical Assistance Programs 

MOA Memorandum of agreement 

MPO Metropolitan Planning Organizations 

RIMS Roadway Inventory Management System 

RPC Regional Planning Commissions 

SCCATTS South Carolina Collision and Ticket Tracking System 

SCDMV South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles 

SCDOT South Carolina Department of Transportation 

SCDPS South Carolina Department of Public Safety 

TRCC Traffic Records Coordinating Committee 

TTAP Tribal Technical Assistance Programs 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) and the South Carolina 

Department of Public Safety (SCDPS) implemented the South Carolina Collision and Ticket 

Tracking System (SCCATTS), a long-term initiative to improve law enforcement data quality. 

SCCATTS supports decision making with quality data and by efficiently sharing data among 

stakeholders. The benefits of SCCATTS include providing a standardized way for law 

enforcement to process crash and citation data through a streamlined electronic process, 

obtaining more timely, accurate, and complete crash and citation data, data-driven decisionmaking, and delivering data to stakeholder agencies electronically, eliminating the paper-based 

process. 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

INTRODUCTION 

South Carolina sought to improve the quality of crash data for more than 20 years, but data 

quality problems persisted despite numerous projects implementing new technology. The State 

found it particularly concerning that they were unable to pinpoint crashes based on the location 

information collected by officers in the field. The State could not use its linear referencing 

system (LRS) to locate crashes, which hindered safety analyses that required integrated crash, 

roadway, and traffic data. Law enforcement agencies’ use of Global Positioning System (GPS) 

devices to gather location coordinates did not meet South Carolina Department of 

Transportation’s (SCDOT) accuracy requirements because, in too many cases, the system 

recorded the crash location as where the officer completed the report. 

In December 2005, South Carolina passed a primary seatbelt law, which made the State eligible 

for approximately $10 million in grant funds. SCDOT and the South Carolina Department of 

Public Safety (SCDPS) used this new funding to implement the South Carolina Collision and 

Ticket Tracking System (SCCATTS), a long-term initiative to improve law enforcement data 

quality. SCCATTS supports decision making with higher quality data and more efficient data 

sharing among stakeholders. The State Traffic Records Coordinating Committee (TRCC) 

supported this initiative, which led to the development of a number of related projects aimed at 

tracking and improving data quality. 

The purpose of this case study is to highlight the methods used for deployment, training, and 

implementation of SCCATTS and document its benefits to law enforcement, crash data 

management, and highway safety programs. 

BACKGROUND 

SCCATTS began in 1997 as a project outlined by the State’s Traffic Records Steering 

Committee (the predecessor to today’s TRCC). Lack of funding and approvals stalled the initial 

SCCATTS effort. After almost a decade, and through the support of a re-formed TRCC, 

SCDPS and SCDOT used a commercial off-the-shelf software program to provide an electronic 

data capture solution for crash, personal contacts, and citation data. The two agencies also 

collaborated to provide funds for in-car computers and associated hardware to the SC Highway 

Patrol and over 100 local law enforcement agencies. 

Before the initiative, South Carolina had attempted to address a number of crash data 

management issues, including: 

 Poor location accuracy provided on crash reports and incompatibility with the SCDOT

LRS.

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

 Outdated Adaptable Data Base System (ADABASE) system that provided the data to

SCDOT for their Roadway Inventory Management System (RIMS) just once a year.

 Backlogged manual crash data entry over 60 days.

 Complex and time-consuming processes for passing paper crash reports between

SCDPS, SCDOT, and the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (SCDMV). The

multiple steps in handling crash reports also increased the likelihood of errors and

inconsistencies among the agencies’ versions of the data.

SCCATTS eliminated paper reporting and manual data entry, and improved efficiency by 

supporting simultaneous access by multiple agencies. SCCATTS is more than just the crash data 

repository. It provides a solution for law enforcement agencies to use the SCDOT LRS to map 

the crash location. This makes it simpler for the State to link crash data with roadway inventory 

and traffic volume data. The system also stores the collision data for the State and creates 

aggregate reports for any data element within the system. SCCATTS applies business rule 

validations and edit checks for the State’s police crash report form, public contacts, and the 

Uniform Traffic Ticket. SCCATTS sends the raw data back to the law enforcement agencies 

and interfaces with SCDOT, SCDMV and other stakeholder agencies’ systems. The result is 

improved access to more timely, accurate, and complete data that adheres to a statewide 

uniform standard and is integrated with existing safety data systems and analysis tools. 

OBJECTIVE 

SCCATTS meets the following objectives: 

 Provide a standardized way for law enforcement to process crash and citation data

through a streamlined electronic process. 

 Avoid costs for licensing and hardware for the investigating agencies.

 Obtain more timely, accurate, and complete crash and citation data.

 Provide law enforcement agencies with simple reporting tools that encourage datadriven decision making. 

 Deliver data to fellow stakeholder agencies through an electronic system, thereby

eliminating the paper-based processes. 

AUDIENCE 

This case study will be of interest to the following audiences: 

 State, and local law enforcement agencies.

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

 State Departments of Transportation: especially the Safety Engineering, Design, Planning,

Maintenance, GIS, and Asset Management Units.

 City and County Public Works/Engineering/Transportation Departments, Metropolitan

Planning Organizations (MPO), and Regional Planning Commissions (RPC).

 Traffic Records Coordinating Committees.

 Local and Tribal Technical Assistance Programs (LTAP and TTAP).

 University-based and private consultants involved with safety.

DEVELOPMENT OF SCCATTS 

South Carolina began attempts to start this project in the late 1990s, but funding was lacking. 

Once the primary seatbelt law passed, the State used Section 406 Occupant Protection 

Incentive Program grant funds to move the project forward. In August 2007, SCDPS hired a 

dedicated project coordinator. In September 2007, the State’s TRCC was re-formed and 

actively promoted the creation of SCCATTS. Agency leads from the SCDOT, SCDPS, SCDMV, 

South Carolina Judicial Department, and South Carolina Department of Health and 

Environmental Control backed the new SCCATTS initiative led by SCDPS and SCDOT. 

In the process of creating the scope for the project, SCDPS consulted users and technology 

leaders within the SCDPS and SCDOT, crash data system managers, State and local law 

enforcement, roadway data managers, the traffic engineering section within SCDOT, and data 

entry operators who were responsible for both manual data entry and quality control. These 

system users recommended requirements for a system that supported field data collection and 

allowed for future expansion. SCDOT used the police crash report form, the instruction 

manual, and map layers from the State-maintained roadway file as primary sources for creating 

the crash data collection tool. 

The crash report form and the manual provided most of the business rules for the SCCATTS 

data collection screens. There are 242 fields on the crash report form. Data definitions specify 

the field type, character length, and validation rules. SCCATTS implements validation rules as 

edit checks prompting the officer to verify or correct any data value that fails to meet any of 

the validation rules. Throughout application development, law enforcement suggested creating 

data elements that they could enter once and then use to populate multiple data fields on the 

form. This saved officers’ time in filling out the report. On average, these improvements 

decreased the roadside time for police crash investigation from 33 minutes down to 12 

minutes. Some of the same date elements were also shared between crash, citation, and 

personal contact forms saving the officers even more time at the scene. 

With the mapping solution, SCDOT and SCDPS both understood the need for accurate 

location data. In 2007, before the new system was in place, the SCDOT location database 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

included only State-maintained roadways. SCDOT worked with several municipalities to create 

a map file with data layers showing line work for all State-maintained roads with county ID, 

route type, and route number, plus a county-supplied E-911 layer that included the street 

names for all local streets. With complete location information on all public roads, law 

enforcement officers using SCCATTS can pinpoint the crash location on the map that pops up 

as part of the location data entry section of the crash report form. A single mouse-click not 

only provides accurate latitude/longitude on the report, but also populates the other location 

information data fields on the crash report (names of roadways, distances from intersections, 

route type, route number, and county). Figure 1 shows the final product as officers see it in the 

field. 

Figure 1. Point and click location interface for SCCATTS. 

Law enforcement officers can also use the line work from the mapping application as a basis for 

the crash scene diagram, saving time and reducing errors. 

SCDPS purchased 832 mobile computing solutions for the South Carolina Highway Patrol 

(SCHP), which included laptop computers, printers, and barcode scanners for reading 

information coded on driver licenses and vehicle registrations. Members of the SCDPS Office of 

Highway Safety and Justice trained members of the SCHP for a pilot deployment in November 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

2009, and for four local law enforcement agencies in June 2010. After completing the pilot 

studies, the SCDPS staff began training SCHP troops in all seven Districts, as well as any 

interested law enforcement agencies that already had sufficient hardware available to their 

officers. In 2012, the State began providing hardware to other local law enforcement agencies 

prioritized based on the number of crashes investigated per year. SCDPS drafted a 

memorandum of agreement (MOA) for State and local law enforcement agencies requiring the 

agencies to use the State-provided software in exchange for computer hardware. 

A key goal of SCCATTS was to eliminate the need for paper reports and manual handling of the 

hard copy documents. SCDPS and SCDOT attempted one of the first data exchange efforts in 

2011. SCDPS transformed the data into an acceptable format for importing into RIMS. Since 

SCCATTS houses the State collision master file, it also merged these files with all electronically 

submitted crash reports and the remaining paper reports that the data entry team keyed. As a 

result, the data transfer included all crash data, not just the electronically reported data. Since 

that time, SCDPS has supported electronic data transfers from the SCCATTS servers to State 

and local law enforcement and local engineering agencies. Today, the State collects 80 percent 

of its crash reports electronically, and this effort will continue to incrementally eliminate paper 

crash report submissions. 

RESULTS 

FUNDING 

SCDOT began with Section 406 funding to support this effort, but continued with several other 

funding streams. To fund personnel with this effort, SCDPS used National Highway Safety and 

Traffic Administration (NHTSA) Section 408 funds and later Section 405c. Hardware 

procurements after the initial purchase for the SCHP also used traffic records program grant 

money. Some hardware purchases used SAFETEA-LU Section 1906 funds, but these law 

enforcement agencies were primarily interested in using the hardware for the Public Contact 

form. SCDOT encouraged these agencies to use the State crash report software, but it was not 

a requirement for use of hardware purchased under this grant. SCDOT supported projects that 

required data exchange between law enforcement and SCDPS as TRCC projects. Most of these 

data exchange projects obtained high priority rankings in the Traffic Records Strategic Plan. 

Traffic records grants funds provided the funding for all of the high priority projects (Section 

408 and later 405c). 

BENEFITS 

South Carolina identified the following benefits of SCCATTS: 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

 Crash Data System

o Improved accuracy and timeliness from date of crash to date of data available in

collision master file.

o Reduced the number of required key entry staff from ten operators to five. Staff

is now doing quality checks on the data 30 days after the submission.

o Average investigation time of a collision report from date of incident to final

acceptance in the crash data file is 8.7 days, down from a 60-day backlog for

paper report processing.

o Crash diagrams more closely resemble the roadways on which the incident

occurred.

 Roadway System

o SCDOT receives collisions mapped on the plane of coordinates used within

RIMS.

o More accurate crash diagrams create a better point for the roadway analyst to

understand what events led up to the crash.

o SCDOT can analyze work zone crash data in near real time due to pre-defined

reports made available within the State System.

o Crash data is available to SCDOT monthly with access to reports and diagrams.

This data is more timely and more useful for highway improvement projects.

 County and Municipal Agencies

o Law Enforcement is able to tie the data to other initiatives such as the Data

Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS).

o Provides a common tool for law enforcement and other users to share tips and

understanding in the use of the application.

o Supports crash data quality discussions at Law Enforcement Network meetings.

o Agencies now have access to a reporting software solution available at no

licensing cost.

 Driver and Vehicle Records

o A web service transmits data from the State system electronically to SCDMV,

eliminating the sequential passing of paper reports.

o Most crash reports submitted use the SCDMV source credentials—driver

license and vehicle registration—barcodes to populate the information. Data is a

one-to-one relationship with the data in SCDMV databases, which eliminates

manual validation steps for SCDMV.

 Traffic Records Coordinating Committee

o Created a collaborative link with the State TRCC.

o Electronic crash reporting spawned several additional TRCC-led efforts to

improve crash data quality.

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

BARRIERS AND HOW THEY WERE OVERCOME 

Lack of funding delayed the project for several years. Passage of the primary seatbelt law gave 

the State access to funds to pay for the technical portion of the project. The State was ready 

with a project description and plan and was therefore able to take immediate advantage of the 

new funding source. 

Throughout the course of the project, stakeholder agencies in this effort faced the challenge of 

deciding which agency would serve as the custodian-of-record for crash data. The State TRCC 

discussed the issue and prioritized this project in its strategic plan. The TRCC voted to fund 

aspects of the project using traffic records grant funds. Ultimately, a series of memoranda of 

agreement provided the solution that worked best for the TRCC and the stakeholder agencies. 

LESSONS LEARNED 

More data does not necessarily equal better quality data. With more timely data, South 

Carolina has achieved faster turnaround on analyses. The software program allows for tailoring 

to reduce errors introduced by the human factor by eliminating multiple data entry/handling 

steps and by prompting officers with potential problem data at the time the report is submitted. 

Improved accuracy and completeness increase the reliability of the data for safety decision 

making. 

Gaining support from local law enforcement agencies to use the software is key because they 

are responsible for a large percentage of crash reports. Their data is the primary source for 

crash information on local roads. One of the largest issues for agencies getting on board was 

the ability to have access to the data within their own records management systems. While the 

State solution had no licensing cost, a number of agencies have invested in software that they 

preferred to use to meet their own analytic needs. SCDPS and local agencies worked together 

to create the interfaces required to share data back to the local agencies’ records management 

systems. 

NEXT STEPS 

SCDPS continues to increase the number of agencies using SCCATTS and improving the 

application with updates and new modules. They have now deployed the citation data collection 

module to local law enforcement agencies, and it is in a pilot group with SCHP troops of all 

seven Districts. Companion legislation will require that law enforcement agencies and SCHP 

submit all citations to the State electronically. The point-and-click map will include functional 

classification in the next mapping update. 

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SOUTH CAROLINA ELECTRONIC CRASH SYSTEM 

REFERENCES 

1. SCDPS Office of Highway Safety and Justice Programs – Emily Thomas and Susan Berry.

Telephone Interview. January 22, 2016.

AGENCY CONTACT INFORMATION 

Doug Connelly 

Traffic Records Manager 

Office of Highway Safety and Justice Programs 

South Carolina Department of Public Safety 

10311 Wilson Blvd 

Blythewood, SC 27016 

DougConnelly@scdps.gov 

803-896-0624 

Emily Thomas 

Strategic Highway Safety Plan Manager / Statistical Analysis and Research Manger 

Office of Highway Safety and Justice Programs 

South Carolina Department of Public Safety 

10311 Wilson Blvd. 

Blythewood, SC 29016 

EmilyThomas@scdps.gov 

803-896-2390 

Susan Berry 

Traffic Safety Data Analyst 

Office of Highway Safety and Justice Programs 

South Carolina Department of Public Safety 

10311 Wilson Blvd 

Blythewood, SC 27016 

SusanBerry@scdps.gov 

803-896-9940 

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