[pt] Aliada à incorporação do automóvel no cotidiano da sociedade, emerge um relevante problema social: os acidentes de trânsito. O impacto destes acontecimentos é tal que esses eles custam à maioria dos países cerca de 3 por cento do seu Produto Interno Bruto (PIB). No Brasil, um país majoritariamente rodoviário, a malha concentra cerca de 60 por cento do volume de cargas transportadas e 90 por cento do total de passageiros. Quando se fala de veículos pesados, a situação é ainda mais grave, expostos a jornadas de trabalho, exaustivas, caminhoneiros trabalham em um ambiente em que o risco, a falta de segurança, a infraestrutura viária e o tempo de isolamento podem gerar acidentes de maior gravidade nas rodovias federais. No Estado do Rio de Janeiro, a frota de veículos está em crescente expansão e necessita de formas de controle para os riscos dos acidentes. Com a evolução das geotecnologias, estudos georreferenciados, quando inseridos em um Sistema de Informação Geográfica (SIG), têm permitido uso de técnicas estatísticas espaciais e de otimização para tomada de decisões. Este trabalho teve como objetivo estudar ferramentas em SIG nas análises de acidentes de trânsito envolvendo veículos pesados nas rodovias federais no Estado do Rio de Janeiro. O trabalho demonstrou as capacidades de SIG, à luz da literatura atual e metodologias oficiais, na identificação dos pontos críticos de acidentes no Estado do Rio de Janeiro e, por utilizar banco de dados, as metodologias podem ser replicadas, aperfeiçoadas ou expandidas em outras regiões. / [en] Allied to the incorporation of the automobile in the daily life of society, a relevant social problem emerges: traffic accidents. While in developed countries great effort is done to control them, in developing countries, with an unstable growth, they appear as a growing problem (MARIN and QUEIROZ, 2000). The impact of these events is such that these accidents cost most countries around 3 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (GONIEWICZ et al., 2015; WHO, 2018). Traffic injury is now the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5 to 29 years. And it presents itself as the eighth leading cause of death in all age groups, more than AIDS, tuberculosis and diarrhea (ITF, 2017; WHO, 2018). In Brazil, a mainly road country, the network concentrates about 60 percent of the volume of cargo transported (and 90 percent of the total passengers). Reports, referring to 2016 data, show that Brazil appears in third place among the record-breaking countries in traffic deaths, behind only India and China (WHO, 2018). When it comes to heavy vehicles, the situation is even worst. According to a report by the Ministry of Transport, Ports and Aviation, trucks represent about 6 percent of the vehicle fleet in Brazil, however they are involved in 16.7 percent of all accidents, and with greater severity, in federal roads (BRASIL, 2017). Exposed to working hours, often exhausting, truck drivers work in risky situations, in which the lack of security and time away from their family members are the main negative points of the profession (CNT, 2019b). Rio de Janeiro State has an expanding fleet, estimated at about 6,725,822 vehicles (IBGE, 2020). Information from the Transit Dossier, a survey carried out by the Public Security Institute (ISP) and DETRAN-RJ, show that in 2018, 1,957 people died and 27,520 were injured in traffic accidents in Rio de Janeiro State, an average of six victims fatal every day (BOECHAT, 2019). Traffic accident locations are crucially important information for understanding the causes and implementation of traffic safety measures. With the evolution of geotechnologies, this field starts to gain a lot of strength. georeferenced studies allow the use of statistical techniques for analysis and optimization for decision making when inserted in a Geographic Information System (GIS) (SILVA et al., 2009; HASHIMOTO, 2016). This work aims to study GIS tools in the analysis of traffic accidents, using a case study of heavy vehicles on federal roads in Rio de Janeiro State. The methodology adopted for the elaboration of this research was of exploratory research, with a bibliographic review of the concepts and historical roads in Brazil, as well as the methodologies in existing Geographic Information Systems. With a subsequent application case study and methodological comparison.