Missouri DOT, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The ability of state and local highway officials to track traffic citation and adjudication data through the judicial process is critical to identifying high-risk drivers and supporting systemic safety improvement. Access to accurate records enables law enforcement and court officials to identify and respond to repeat offenders. For example, for someone with multiple convictions for driving while intoxicated (DWI), a judge may order an ignition interlock: an in-vehicle breathalyzer device that prevents the engine from starting if alcohol is detected.

At a system level, reliable traffic records support fair legal outcomes and inform the development of strategies to improve public safety. Evaluating safety interventions—such as sobriety checkpoints, improved crosswalks, or sober driving campaigns—typically involves comparing outcomes before and after implementation. When considering sobriety checkpoints, for example, a locality may want to examine changes over time in alcohol- or substance-related arrests and convictions in similar communities that implemented the strategy. However, effective analysis depends on having access to complete, usable citation and adjudication data—including for cases that ended in dropped or reduced charges, deferrals, or other alternatives to conviction.

Scott L., Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

To compare safety outcomes across jurisdictions, data must be consistently structured. Yet, in many parts of the United States, traffic records are collected and stored inconsistently, even within the same state, making cross-jurisdiction comparisons difficult or impossible. TRB’s Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program (BTSCRP) Project BTS-04, published as BTSCRP Research Report 5: Strategies to Improve State Traffic Citation and Adjudication Outcomes, was launched to identify challenges and potential solutions in traffic records management and to produce a practical toolkit for agencies and states. This article summarizes the project’s background, methods, and key findings.

Given their limited resources, states and localities generally aim to prioritize projects that offer the greatest safety returns for all road users. Better citation and adjudication data would help agencies assess progress toward safety goals and identify opportunities for improvement. Insights from BTSCRP Project BTS-04 can help enable more targeted, effective safety strategies.

Background Considerations

Tracking citation and adjudication records offers significant benefits. However, the ability to aggregate and use the data often is hindered by various technical, logistical, and legal challenges. These include how and where data are stored, whether systems are unified across jurisdictions, and issues related to digitization (e.g., converting paper records to computer-readable formats), as well as data linkage. While digitization makes it easier to share data, even digital systems face interoperability issues. The following sections explore these in more detail.

Data Management

Citation-related data collection typically originates during traffic stops. Traditionally, these data have been recorded on paper tickets that later require manual entry into the official records. Some jurisdictions have moved to using digital citation tools , such as tablets or smartphones, that connect directly to law enforcement systems. While off-the-shelf, commercial digital records-management systems are available to support the transition from paper-based to electronic records, many are proprietary and not built for easy data sharing.

City of Lubbock

Once a citation is sent to the court system, all relevant data—such as citation details, police codes, and toxicology reports—must be transferred correctly to support accurate and fair adjudication. This is a common point of failure, as courts and law enforcement agencies often use separate recordkeeping systems. Key issues include missing data, poor data quality, and weak linkage between systems. Courts generate additional records—including charges, final dispositions, and fines—that are essential to identifying repeat offenders, such as individuals with multiple DWI convictions.

In addition to law enforcement agencies and courts, a third critical entity—typically a state’s motor vehicles department or registry—maintains licensing records affected by adjudications across multiple jurisdictions. These include driver histories, crash reports, and insurance records, which all influence current and future adjudications. For instance, awareness of a driver’s DWI history can shape judicial decisions, including referral to treatment programs.

Data systems may also vary widely within and across states, compounding the challenges of aligning and using driver records to develop safety strategies. Differences in record format (i.e., paper versus digital), citation codes, data collection timing, statutes, and administrative processes all contribute to possible inconsistencies. For example, a paper citation might be handwritten, later transcribed with potential errors, and then entered into an incompatible court system, all resulting in multiple points of potential data loss or distortion. If a driver has previous infractions in another county or state that aren’t captured, prosecutors and judges may lack key context when determining charges or sentencing.

Factors Affecting Data Usefulness

The usefulness of traffic records, including citation and adjudication data, depends on three key factors: availability, accuracy, and linkage. Each plays a critical role in tracking individual offenders and informing broader safety strategies.

Availability means that agencies can access the data they need. This data, however, may be unavailable for several reasons. Information may have been collected improperly, stored in incompatible systems, linked incorrectly, or restricted because of logistical or legal barriers. Inconsistent practices across agencies and jurisdictions can further limit access.

Accuracy refers to the quality and completeness of the data. To support effective safety countermeasures, data must be reliable and free of error. Inaccuracies can arise from the following:

• Incomplete data collection, such as failing to document a vehicle owner if different than the driver.
• Transcription mistakes when converting paper records to digital format.
•  Translation errors between incompatible digital systems.
•  Delays in collecting or recording toxicology results, which can reduce the reliability of impairment data.

Linkage is the ability to correctly connect related records across different systems and organizations. This is often a major technical hurdle. Data may be formatted differently, use varying vendor systems, or be stored in silos that don’t communicate with each other. For instance, a law enforcement agency may use software from one vendor while the court system uses another, with no built-in compatibility. Differences in citation codes across jurisdictions can further complicate the identification of repeat offenders. Even when systems within a state are coordinated, linking driver traffic records across states may remain a challenge, such as when a driver with a DWI history relocates to a state that does not use compatible data systems or participate in cross-state data-sharing.

Together, these factors determine how well traffic records data can be used to identify habitual offenders, evaluate safety interventions, and support consistent adjudication processes across jurisdictions.

State Unification Categories

The degree to which a state has a unified data structure significantly affects how traffic records can be tracked and used at both state and local levels. Unification refers to how consistently jurisdictions within a state—(e.g., towns, counties, and state agencies)—share core elements of traffic records systems and is generally categorized into three types: legal, structural, and digital. Understanding these unification categories is critical to assessing how well a state can address the data challenges discussed earlier:

• Legal unification refers to the extent to which citation codes and legal definitions are standardized across jurisdictions within a state. When legal codes vary, data sharing and linkage become more difficult, even within a state. States and localities that participate in the National Information Exchange Model—a data standardization initiative supported by federal agencies—facilitate more consistent data sharing within and between states.
• Structural unification describes how a state organizes and funds its court system. States with fewer jurisdictional tiers and centralized (i.e., state-level) funding tend to have more consistent procedures, reducing the chance of data loss or corruption during transmission between courts. In contrast, fragmented court structures and mixed funding sources can complicate standardization and increase the risk of inconsistent data practices.
• Digital unification occurs when all jurisdictions in a state use compatible, end-to-end digital records systems. This minimizes translation errors and incompatibility issues when transferring data among systems. It also enables law enforcement and courts in different jurisdictions to access and integrate information more efficiently.

Research on Data Linkage and Tracking

Data misalignment and errors can affect outcomes at both the individual case level and the broader systemic level, affecting justice, safety interventions, and the identification of high-risk drivers. In the early 2000s, NHTSA introduced the Model Impaired Driving Records Information System (MIDRIS) to help states develop linked electronic systems for impaired driving records (1). In 2011, a NHTSA report documented its implementation in four demonstration states: Alabama, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. The report noted that while many states had adopted components of improved traffic record tracking, only a few had fully integrated data management systems. It also outlined the methodology behind MIDRIS and detailed specific steps that each demonstration state took to improve data tracking and transfer, based on their system’s configurations (2).

As mentioned, BTSCRP Project BTS-04 (results published as BTSCRP Research Report 5), aimed to deepen understanding of implementation issues and to create a practical outreach toolkit to help states strengthen their citation and adjudication data systems.

The following sections summarize the project’s methodology and findings.

Project Design and Findings

The goal of BTSCRP Project BTS-04 was to identify challenges and barriers to effective citation and adjudication tracking across the United States; synthesize proven strategies and solutions; and develop a practical, flexible toolkit that agencies and states can use to improve data tracking. To achieve this, the project followed a three-phase approach.

Phase 1: Identify Impediments to Effective Records Tracking

The research team began by analyzing data from the following sources to determine each state’s level of legal, structural, and digital unification:

• State traffic record assessments, which are designed to help states identify areas for improvement in their records systems;
• Public information websites; and
• Information provided by the National Center for State Courts, an independent nonprofit organization focused on improving the administration of state courts.

Only five states at that time were unified in all three areas, while 10 had no unification. The remaining 35 states showed partial unification. Table 1 summarizes the distribution. Detailed, state-specific findings are available in BTSCRP Research Report 5.

TABLE 1 Status of Statewide Traffic Records Data-System Unification

Unification Category	Number of States
No Unification	10
Legal + Structural + Digital	5
Legal + Structural	9
Legal + Digital	3
Structural + Digital	5
Legal Only	9
Structural Only	3
Digital Only	6

The research team then selected a sample of states in each category for in-depth study, conducting semistructured interviews with transportation officials. These included representatives from state traffic records coordinating committees, which oversee the management of traffic records data; state departments of transportation; law enforcement agencies; and court systems. The goal of these interviews was to gather detailed, firsthand information about the specific data-sharing challenges experienced in each state—particularly those linked to their unification status—and the strategies used to address them. A modified framework analysis was applied to organize the findings into the following themes:

• Challenges and barriers.
• Strategies and solutions.
• Lessons learned.

Phase 2: Synthesize Challenges, Strategies, and Solutions

Findings from interviews with state highway safety officials were synthesized into a set of common challenges associated with varying degrees of unification and the strategies used to address them. These challenges fell into two main categories: structural and data-related.

Structural challenges are rooted in a state’s legal or organizational system and include the following:

1. Inconsistencies across jurisdictions in citation definitions, court protocols, agency responsibilities, and data-sharing practices;
2. Tracking difficulties related to how case deferrals and dismissals are recorded; and
3. Changing data collection requirements, which can disrupt data coding consistency and alignment.

Data-related challenges concern how information is created, stored, shared, and tracked. These include the following:

1. Jurisdictional variance in data coding, handling, and transmission practices;
2. Inconsistent data quality and standards across systems;
3. Data errors, such as illegible paper documents, transcription errors during digital conversion, incomplete or neglected data fields, clerical errors, and corrupted digital files; and
4. Storage and transfer issues, especially in systems that mix paper and digital formats.

Phase 3: Identify Strategies and Solutions Toward Digitization

Across interviews with highway safety officials, implementing end-to-end digital data systems—thereby increasing unification across a state’s traffic-records infrastructure—was the most frequently cited solution to many structural and data-related challenges. While transitioning to digital systems often poses new challenges, it can also resolve numerous issues in organizational structural and data content. Officials identified several advantages to digitization, including the following:

• Easier data tracking and improved data integrity;
• Reduced errors and transcription mistakes;
• Faster and more cohesive data-sharing and synchronization;
• Embedded GPS location data for more precise records;
• Long-term adaptability to future technologies; and
• Personnel benefits, such as quicker citation issuance—reducing roadside time for law enforcement—and reduced administrative workloads.

Digital Transition-Related Challenges and Strategies

States and jurisdictions transitioning to digital systems face new challenges that should be considered to ensure success. These include the following:

1. Managing and integrating data from multiple vendors, particularly where systems are already in use across jurisdictions;
2. Synchronizing data flows among jurisdictions using a mix of paper and digital systems; and
3. Training users (and securing funding for that training) across different agencies, including law enforcement and courts.

Interviews revealed a range of strategies to support successful digital transitions. These fell into three general categories: identifying sources of support, thoughtful system development, and technical considerations. These strategies are summarized in Figure 1.

BUILD SUPPORT
Identify funding sources for hardware, software, and training.	Identify advocates, stakeholders, and champions, including at the local level.	Engage advocates and stakeholders to champion the transition.
CONDUCT THOUGHTFUL SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
Prioritize system usability and ease of use.	Pilot test with users in different roles across varying situations.	Ensure compatibility with existing systems.
Communicate broadly and formalize shared responsibilities through memoranda of understanding.	Consider all legal implications, including complying with regulations, legislation, and mandates.	Develop training for users across all roles.
CONSIDER TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Ensure data integrity and create consistent backups.	Implement open and effective data analysis and storage tools.	Improve system design in response to user feedback and pilot testing.

FIGURE 1   Strategies for transitioning to digital data systems.

As part of the project, the research team developed detailed resources, including a user-friendly toolkit, that offers step-by-step guidance for planning and implementing each strategy. The toolkit, available as a downloadable PowerPoint presentation, along with comprehensive project methods and findings, are available as BTSCRP Research Report 5.