Analyzing Highway Accidents in the State of Paraíba, Brazil

This study aims to gain insights into the patterns and trends of traffic accidents that occurred on the highways in this region.

About the Data

To obtain the data for the project on highway accidents in the state of Paraíba, Brazil, I accessed the official website of the Polícia Rodoviária Federal (PRF), which is the Brazilian Federal Highway Police responsible for monitoring and maintaining road safety. The PRF provides open data through its "Dados Abertos" (Open Data) initiative, where institutional data is made available in machine-readable format without any restrictions on licenses or patents. This allows anyone to freely use, reuse, and redistribute the data for various purposes, including research and analysis.

Specifically, for the analysis of highway accidents, I accessed the "Acidentes" (Accidents) section of the PRF's Open Data, which provides detailed information about traffic accidents. The data is organized chronologically, spanning different years from 2007 to 2023, and is further categorized by occurrence and person involved in the accidents. The data is conveniently presented in CSV (comma-separated values) format, making it suitable for easy processing and analysis using R software.

To ensure the integrity of the data, I made sure to download the files in their compressed (zipped) form, and after downloading, I used appropriate software applications like WinRAR, WinZip, 7-zip, or PeaZip to decompress the files and access the content.

By utilizing the Dados Abertos da PRF, I gained access to comprehensive and reliable data on traffic accidents on highways in the state of Paraíba, Brazil, which served as the foundation for my analysis in R. This dataset provides valuable insights to understand the patterns, trends, and contributing factors of accidents in the region, helping to devise effective measures to enhance road safety and reduce accident occurrences.