Cambridge Crash Reports with Geospatial Coordinates

Over six years of motor vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian crash incidents reported by the Cambridge Police Department from January 2010 through June 2016. The dataset includes approximate addresses and geocoded coordinates, though some locations from 2010-2013 were not found during the MIT Public Safety Data Challenge geocoding effort.

Use Cases

• Analyze crash frequency by Police Neighborhood Regions or cambridge_neighborhoods to prioritize safety interventions.
• Model the relationship between Day Of Week, Date Time, and Crash Number to predict high-risk periods.
• Map crash hotspots using Latitude and Longitude coordinates, filtering out records where coordinates equal 0.
• Examine the co-occurrence of Object 1 and Object 2 (e.g., motor vehicle vs. bicycle) to understand collision types.
• Join with zoning data using cambridge_cdd_zoning to assess crash rates against land use categories.

Strengths

• Covers a 6.5-year time range from January 2010 to June 2016.
• Includes multiple location references: Latitude, Longitude, Coordinates, Street Number, and Cross Street.
• Provides categorical breakdowns by Police Response Districts, Census Blocks 2010, and Day Of Week.

Limitations

• Addresses are approximate, and some geocoding efforts for 2010-2013 failed, resulting in Latitude/Longitude values of 0.
• Data is not current, ending in June 2016, with a more recent dataset noted as available.
• Sample size and row count are unknown, limiting assessment of statistical power.

Provenance

Source

data.cambridgema.gov, likely the Cambridge Police Department.

Collection Method

Police-reported crash records, with 2010-2013 rows geocoded via the MIT Public Safety Data Challenge.

Time Range

January 2010 through June 2016.

Freshness

Historical; ended June 2016. A more recent dataset is referenced.

Geography

City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.