Cycling injury and accident data integrated for complete picture

Overview

Action 5.8: Investigate the collection of injury and incident data relating to cyclists to understand how data sources can better work together to improve analysis of serious injury road crash data.

Lead agency: Department of Transport and Main Roads

Status: Complete

Achievements

Our research has provided a stronger understanding of how data sources can better work together to improve analysis of road crashes that result in serious injury, including for bicycle riders.

Working with Queensland Health, Queensland Police Service, and Queensland Ambulance Service, we looked at how data about injuries and incidents is collected. We found that while all 4 agencies collect important crash data, the data is not always being linked and this limits our understanding of incidents and injuries.

Our findings demonstrate how these gaps can be closed, to provide a more complete picture of serious injury crashes, enabling better scrutiny of the data.

This approach will be tested by linking data from the Road Crash and Queensland Health databases (from hospitals, emergency departments, and ambulance) for the past 12 months.

Once testing is complete, changes will be implemented to better link the data from the various databases which will enable us to take more effective action to reduce serious crashes on our roads.

Next steps

We will implement improvements to link bicycle injury and incident data sources to enhance our understanding of serious injury road crashes.