NEWS

stats19 2025-10

Major updates to deal with new file names and column names in updated files hosted by the Department for Transport (#268)
Refactored download logic to no longer use .zip files, which are no longer served by the DfT. The package now downloads .csv files directly.
Switched from download.file() to curl::curl_download() for more robust downloads (#258).
Improved documentation around setting a permanent download directory using the STATS19_DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY environment variable (#211).
Promoted essential packages for data download and formatting (dplyr, lubridate, jsonlite) from Suggests to Imports.
Replaced reshape2 with tidyr for data manipulation (#276).
Added support for downloading the last 5 years of data using year = "5 years" (#261).
The get_stats19_adjustments() function now returns a message explaining that adjustments are included in the main casualty dataset, as the separate adjustments file is no longer provided by the DfT (#266).
Added a new vignette that reproduces the DfT's pedestrian factsheet (#240, #277).

stats19 2025-01

Downloads now work when you are on networks with firewalls (#255)

Support for 2023 data (#251)
Another round of updates to the schema files thanks to updates from the DfT

stats19 2024-10

Updates so package functions fail gracefully when input data is not as expected, e.g. due to URL changes (#252)

stats19 2024-07

stats19 now relies on the stats19_variables object to format the different tables columns (#245) (credit @layik), fixing an issue in which ages were removed from the casualties table, fixing (#235)
If year is less than 2018 the package auto-downloads the full dataset (#239)

stats19 2024-02

Update documentation to account for the shift in table names, replacing accidents with collisions and casualty with casualties (#232)

stats19 2023-11

Fix issue with coordinates as characters (#228)

stats19 2023-10

Minor update to increase default timeout in get_stats19() to 10 minutes (#226)

Major update so the package works with the new csv files (up to 2022)
Deprecation of read_accidents in favour of read_collisions and using consistent collision instead of accidents.
Other minor improvements

stats19 2022-11

Changes spatstat.core related code (#217)

stats19 2021-10

Support new https download links (#208)
Package tests now pass when wifi is turned off
URLs have been fixed

stats19 2021-07-21

Use 1st edition of readr on Windows to prevent errors on reading data (#205)

stats19 2021-07

Fix CRAN checks associated with access to online resources (#204)
Fix issues associated with get_ULEZ() and get_MOT() functions

stats19 2020-10

Major changes to the datasets provided by the DfT have led to major changes to the package. See (#212) for details.
To reduce code complexity the package no longer supports reading in multiple years
This puts the onus on the user of the package to understand the input data, rather than relying on clever coding to join everything together. Note: you can easily join different years, e.g. with the command purrr::map_dfr().

stats19 4.0.0

Major Refactor and Performance Improvements

Zero-Warning Data Loading: The read_stats19() function now intelligently filters column parsers based on the actual CSV header, eliminating extensive warnings about unmatched parsers (#302).
Modernized readr Engine: The package now defaults to readr Edition 2 globally for faster, multi-threaded parsing, while removing legacy platform-specific overrides (#302).
Code Simplification: Removed ~300 lines of redundant code from the R/ directory while expanding overall functionality (#302).

Data Quality and Schema Unification

Unified Longitudinal Schema: Historic columns (e.g., *_historic) are now automatically merged into their modern counterparts and dropped, providing a consistent interface across different data years (#302).
Fixed Coordinate Precision: Corrected a bug where 2024 Latitude/Longitude were parsed as integers, restoring full floating-point precision (#302).
Aggressive Label Standardization: Global standardization of missing value codes (e.g., -1, Code deprecated, Data missing) to NA after formatting (#302).
Smart E-scooter Unification: Added logic to automatically identify and flag e-scooter riders in casualty data by cross-referencing vehicle information (#302, #299).

New Features

Intelligent Multi-Year Support: Requesting year ranges (e.g., year = 2011:2012) now automatically identifies the bulk historic files, downloads them once, and filters requested years efficiently (#302).
Cost Estimation: Added match_tag() function to join government TAG (Transport Analysis Guidance) cost estimates (RAS4001) to collision data (#287, #288, #289, #290).
Vehicle Cleaning: New functions clean_make(), clean_model(), and clean_make_model() for standardizing vehicle data, supported by a mapping of over 2,400 unique raw strings (#294).

Minor Changes and Fixes

Fixed issue where year = 1979 incorrectly returned all years; it now correctly returns 1979 data only (#282).
Updated lookup tables using a new reproducible schema_new.R workflow (#291).
Included 'Other Junction' in the schema table (#271).
Moved the %||% operator to utils.R for package-wide availability (#302).

stats19 1.4.1 (2021-03-28)

New function get_ULEZ() to get data on vehicles from a number plate (thanks to Ivo Wengraf)
Added a test to prevent rare failures in get_stats19() when data_dir points to the working directory

stats19 1.4.0 (2021-03-15)

Add get_stats19_adjustments() function
Use GH Actions for CI (#177)
Fixed a problem with get_stats19() and multiple years that could be linked with the same data file (#168)
Fix issues with vignettes for CRAN (#190)

stats19 1.3.0 (2020-10-01)

Support for 2019 data (#171)

stats19 1.2.0 (2020-03-03)

Tests now pass on the development version of R (4.0.0)
The package now has a hex sticker! See https://github.com/ropensci/stats19/issues/132 for discussion
The output of formatted crash datasets gains a new column, datetime that is a properly formatted date-time (POSIXct) object in the correct timezone (Europe/London) (#146)
Enables the download of multiple years as per https://github.com/ropensci/stats19/issues/99, thanks to Layik Hama
Users can now set the default data download directory with STATS19_DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY=/path/to/data in your .Renviron file: https://github.com/ropensci/stats19/issues/141
get_stats19() gains a new argument output_format() that enables results to be returned as an sf object or a ppp object for use the the spatstat package thanks to work by Andrea Gilardi https://github.com/ropensci/stats19/pull/136

stats19 1.1.0 (2019-10-15)

Now enables the download of 2018 data
Various bug fixes, see https://github.com/ropensci/stats19/issues
Update website link: https://docs.ropensci.org/stats19/
New work-in-progress vignette on vehicles data: https://docs.ropensci.org/stats19/articles/stats19-vehicles.html

stats19 1.0.0 (2019-07-28)

Major change to dl_stats19(): it is now much easier to download STATS19 data. By default ask = FALSE in get_stats19() and dl_stats19().

stats19 0.2.1 (2019-04-03)

Fixed issue with column labels not being there - see #82

stats19 0.2.0 (2019-02-15)

get_stats19() gains an ask argument (TRUE by default, set as FALSE to make road crash data access even more automated!)
The date column now is of the correct class after formatting POSIXct. See #86
Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.