The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is integrating two reporting protocols in an effort to simplify crash data entry and analysis, and reduce costly errors. The Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which is over 30 years old, and the National Automotive Sampling System General Estimates System, which is over 20 years old, are both based on police accident reports.

The standardization of the systems also aims to better align reporting with the model minimum uniform crash criteria, which is used by most states for the development and revision of crash report forms and databases.

"Over the years, subtle differences have crept into each system's coding details, which have required separate software, documentation, coding and analysis. So, in an effort to integrate data entry, reduce cost and make the two systems easier to analyze management here decided to bring the two systems closer in line with one another," said an NHTSA official during a September 14 webinar addressing the soon-to-be-published changes to 2009 data. "The name we've given this large undertaking is the FARS-GES Harmonization."

In the past, different terminology has been used to mean the same thing, not only between FARS and GES, but within different NHTSA programs. Terminology standardization has been a major focus of harmonization.

For example, "not reported" will be the preferred term which now includes the commonly entered terms "not coded" and "not on PAR;" "unknown" and "not applicable" will remain an alternative entry option. The way time is reported was also addressed by the harmonized standard. There are a total of 45 common data elements which were clarified and standardized to improve analysis.

"In the past it was difficult to combine and compare the nationally representative GES sample and the FARS census. But now, as the two systems more closely resemble one another, it should be easier for our union end-users to analyze the data," said the spokesman.

The effort to unite the two data systems began in 2006, with the formation of the data standardization work group--comprised of representatives from NHTSA, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration. The changes addressed in the webinar were the first of two phases of identified standardization changes. The second and larger standards revision was implemented in 2010 and has also yet to be published.

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