GIDAS is the German In-Depth Accident Study. Compared to the national traffic accident statistics, GIDAS provides insights into traffic accidents in selected survey areas. While the national traffic accident statistics concisely summarize information on the basis of traffic accidents with personal injury documented by the police, data of a much higher and interdisciplinary level of detail are necessary for modern, scientifically sound road safety work. This project was established to gain this in-depth knowledge of the course and severity of traffic accidents.

Since 1999, the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) project has been operated by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) and the Forschungsvereinigung Automobiltechnik e.V. (FAT) as part of a cooperation for the in-depth survey of traffic accidents according to purely scientific aspects. The BASt and the FAT are each clients and responsible for their respective data collection. The aim is a sustainable improvement of road safety, whereby the BASt primarily pursues the goal of increasing general road safety and the FAT primarily wants to improve industrial products.

The aim of GIDAS is also to represent the occurrence of accidents in Germany on the basis of regional, random data collections, and on the other hand to describe these accidents with as much meaningful and high-quality data collected per accident as possible. As part of these surveys, highly detailed data on traffic accidents with personal injury are collected, documented in a database and made available to evaluators. There is a catalogue of requirements ("codebook") that describes the accident characteristics to be collected and their characteristics. The scientific analysis of the reconstructed traffic accidents generates insights into the cause, course and consequences of traffic accidents. This data basis also allows the documentation of current accident occurrences and the determination of safety phenomena as well as a picture of the effects of changing mobility. The necessary competence for the correct evaluation and interpretation of this quantity and depth of data is indispensable.

For the legislator, this type of traffic accident research enables them to closely observe the accident situation of all road users and to detect positive and negative developments at an early stage. Scientific evaluations with this accident data make it possible to identify safety problems and potentials. On the basis of these findings, targeted measures can then be derived or regulations can be created or further developed at national and international level on vehicle technology, behaviour in traffic, infrastructural and also (rescue/emergency) medical aspects, which lead to a reduction in the number of people killed and injured in road traffic. At the same time, findings from analyses of the GIDAS data serve as the basis for new vehicle safety and assistance systems of all forms of mobility, which are made available to the participating companies via the FAT, among others.

This is the information page of the part of the GIDAS project commissioned by the FAT.

The research contractor of the FAT is the Verkehrsunfallforschung an der TU Dresden GmbH VUFO. #whereweareisfront