A big data approach to examining the link between digital billboards and highway safety

Millions of people in the United States call the roadway their workplace. Unfortunately, driving occupations are also very dangerous. In the U.S., regulations restricting digital billboards have varied wildly by region. While most researchers agree that digital billboards attract driver attention, more research directed towards safety outcomes is needed in order to provide policy makers with a solid foundation for crafting sound regulation. A web based research management platform was developed that captures traffic incident and weather data on a near real time basis, and allows researchers to interact with and export said data. While it is not an ideal system, it provides basic functionality to supply data to an epidemiological style study. The development process is discussed in detail, as are considerations related to digital billboard safety outcome research, in the hopes of providing useful lessons to interested researchers or developers.