Traffic Accident and Crime Mapping System in Blantyre City (TRACRMAP)

This was the final-year project of three MUST students, namely Yewo Mhango, Francis Makina, and Samuel Kachigamba. Its purpose was to explore and demonstrate how the collection, storage, analysis and presentation of Crime and Traffic Accident records in Malawi can be streamlined and automated using digital technology and geospatial infrastructure.

Data recording

Instead of the normal practice of using paper records, a mobile app was created which would allow police and traffic officers to record crimes or traffic accidents digitally on the go. In addition, the app would allow officers to record the coordinates of the incident, using either GPS or custom offline maps

Data visualization

Once recorded by the officers, the data would then be uploaded onto the website of the system.

From there, the data could be visualized on a map to allow officers as well as the public to identify crime trends as well as the areas worst affected by crimes or accidents. Various types of map visualizations were created, including discrete points (map markers), clusters, grids, heatmaps, etc, as shown in the below screenshots.

It is also possible to filter the data being displayed based on specified criteria, as well as allowing the user to download the underlying raw data for further analysis, among other features.